Houston Flooding

Floor Speech

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Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I and a host of colleagues find ourselves on a mission of mercy. This is a mission of mercy, Mr. Speaker, for people who are suffering in Houston, Texas, and the surrounding area.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Congressman Gene Green, the original cosponsor of H.R. 5025, the 2016 Tax Day Floods Supplemental Funding Act. I want to thank Congressman John Culberson for being the first person to sign on, such that the bill has become bipartisan. It is a bipartisan piece of legislation.

I want to talk about suffering today, Mr. Speaker, because a good many people in Houston, Texas, are suffering for a multiplicity of reasons. I will share just a few.

Before I do this, I want to remind friends and colleagues that tonight, after the Republican hour and the Democratic hour, my colleagues and I will take to the floor to say much more about what is happening in Houston, Texas.

For now, I want to mention the suffering, because suffering can teach us that which we can learn no other way. Some things bear repeating. Suffering and pain can teach us that which we can learn no other way. It is one thing to sympathize and to say, ``There but for the grace of God go I'' and understand that there is suffering associated with that statement, but it is another thing to empathize because you had the experience associated with the suffering that goes along with the statement, ``There but for the grace of God go I.''

So in Houston, Texas, a good many people are suffering because they have had their homes flooded not once, but twice--some even more. They are suffering because some of them were just getting back into their homes, and their homes were flooded again. They are suffering because they have lost their means of transportation, the ability to get to work, to sustain the livelihood that causes them to have the ability to take care of themselves and their families.

There is suffering in Houston, Texas. They are suffering because they don't know what the future holds. They don't know what next year will bring or next month will bring because these 100-year floods are happening quite regularly in Houston, Texas. So they are suffering in Houston.

I want my colleagues and my friends to know, Mr. Speaker, that this suffering is something that we can mitigate. We may not be able to eliminate it totally, completely, and absolutely. No one can stop all of the flooding all of the time, but there are projects that have been authorized that we are currently funding on a piecemeal basis. There are projects that, if completed, Mr. Speaker, would mitigate the flooding. We have a piecemeal approach to a problem that requires a wholesale solution. There is suffering, and we could eliminate much of this suffering. That which we cannot eliminate, we can mitigate.

The suffering I have called to your attention thus far, Mr. Speaker, involves property, real and personal. But I also want to mention the ultimate pain that is being endured by a good many in Houston, and that is losing someone whom you love to circumstances that could have possibly been eliminated.

Eight lives, possibly nine--I am told that there may be another-- eight lives were lost, Mr. Speaker. Eight people lost their lives to flooding in Houston, Texas, in the tax day flood, so-called because it occurred on the last day to pay your taxes. Eight lives were lost. The family members of these persons who lost their lives are suffering in Houston, Texas.

So I come to the floor with an appeal to my colleagues. We ask that you kindly give consideration to H.R. 5025, the 2016 Tax Day Floods Supplemental Funding Act, that has now some 60 cosponsors. But it is more than a bill, Mr. Speaker. It is an opportunity to eliminate suffering in Houston, Texas.

I will close with this. I mentioned that suffering can teach us that which we can learn no other way. One of the things that I have learned is that, when a storm hits the East Coast and people are suffering, as a Member of Congress, I have to be there for them. When we have the tornadic activities and people suffer, I have to be there for them. Mr. Speaker, I want people to remember that suffering will teach you that which you can learn no other way.

God bless you, and God bless our great country.

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