Gulfport, Miss. ? U.S. Sen. Trent Lott thinks America sees Mississippians in a different light because of the resilience and courage residents displayed after Hurricane Katrina.

He said Thursday the state has come a long way since the hurricane almost one year ago, but not nearly as far as he had hoped.

“I’m an incurable optimist, but on the other hand I’m never satisfied,” Lott said during a meeting with the Biloxi Sun Herald.

Lott is trying to take care of problems big and small. He said he can’t understand why, this long after the hurricane, a city the size of Pascagoula still has a post office set up in a trailer. He hopes to do something about it.

He has been working in Washington on a compromise bill that will allow FEMA to operate independently of the U.S. Homeland Security Department, reporting directly to the president, although the agency would still remain under the department umbrella.

He thinks FEMA’s name needs to be changed, possibly to EMA. “FEMA,” he said, “is a four-letter, dirty word.”

American Red Cross volunteer Maurrie Sussman comforts an unidentified Hurricane Katrina victim in September at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, where some evacuated New Orleans residents were sent.

But he said that Congress bears some of the blame for passing laws that government agencies operate under. He said Congress set up too big an agency when it created Homeland Security. He is hopeful the agency’s work will improve.

He thinks FEMA should be allowed to sell trailers directly to property owners, but it’s against regulations. He might get in trouble if he were in charge, he said, because he would waive the regulations and sell the trailers, which must instead be sold at auction.

Lott said he’s working to make sure the National Flood Insurance Program is reviewed, that the role insurance companies pay in settling flood claims is investigated and that the bigger picture of a national catastrophe insurance program is addressed.

Although Lott lost his own home in Pascagoula to Katrina, he did not request a FEMA trailer. When he is visiting the Coast, he said, he usually drives to Jackson to stay the night. He is staying in a relative’s trailer for a couple nights, he said.