Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, as a preamble to my amendment, please allow me to thank the chairman, Mr. Simpson, for his courtesies. I would also like to thank the ranking member, Ms. Kaptur, for her courtesies.

Mr. Chairman, if you live in Houston, Texas, you monitor the weather. You monitor the weather, Mr. Chairman, because, over the last year, Houston, Texas, has been declared a disaster area not once, but twice. If you live in Houston, Texas, you monitor the weather because, in the last year, we have spent billions in recovery damages. If you live in Houston, Texas, you monitor the weather because, in the last year, we have lost 17 lives to flooding.

Houston has a problem. But there is a solution. This amendment--which is based upon H.R. 5025, an emergency supplemental bill--would accord $311 million that will eventually be spent. This is not money that will not be spent in Houston, Texas, but money that will be spent on projects that are already authorized. The projects are authorized. The money is going to be spent.

However, we can take a piecemeal approach and do some now, some later, and spend billions more in recovery efforts, which is what we are doing. We are spending billions after floods when we could spend millions before and save money, save lives, and give Houston, Texas, and the citizens therein some degree of comfort.

Mr. Chairman, I believe that my friends in this House have a great deal of sympathy and a good deal of empathy for Houston, Texas, as is evidenced by the fact that over 70 Members have signed onto the bill, H.R. 5025. And we have bipartisan support. We have Republicans at the committee level who are doing what they can within the committee. We also have Democrats who are working to try to help Houston, Texas.

So I am honored tonight to stand in the well of the House to make this request, that Houston, Texas, be made a priority and that the Corps of Engineers, when they do assess the needs of the Nation, that Houston be given some degree of preference because money is being spent that need not be spent.

But, more importantly, Mr. Chairman and Madam Ranking Member, lives are being lost. Houston, Texas, has what are captioned as flash floods. You can find yourself in a circumstance from which you cannot extricate yourself, and you may lose your life when we have one of these inclement, adverse weather conditions.

They happen more often than prognosticated some years ago. It can be debated as to whether we are having 100-year floods or 500-year floods. That is debatable. But what is not debatable is the fact that we are having billion-dollar floods--billion-dollar floods--in Houston, Texas, a major American city declared a disaster area not once, but twice in the last year.

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Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I would like to be heard, if I may.

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Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Would Chairman Simpson allow me to give my closing comments before we receive the ruling from the Chair, which will be just a few seconds more, I believe?

How much time do I have remaining?

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Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Well, yes, on the point of order, if so, in so doing, I may speak to the flooding in Houston, Texas. I want to be appropriate as I do this, and I will yield to the wisdom of the Chair.

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Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I thank Ranking Member Kaptur.

Please allow me to continue with just a brief commentary. I have a colleague who is not here, the Honorable Gene Green. He has asked that his statement with reference to this amendment be placed in the Record.

I would also add this. A good deal of my comments have emanated from, as I indicated, H.R. 5025.

This bill has bipartisan support. I see in the Chamber my good friend and colleague, the Honorable Ted Poe, who is one of the cosponsors of the legislation.

Some of my other colleagues who are cosponsoring from Texas would include the Honorable John Culberson, the Honorable Randy Weber, the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, also the Honorable Gene Green whom I have mentioned. There are others as well.

This is bipartisan. This is a recognition that we are going to have problems that we can solve that will create greater circumstances than we should have to endure.

There is little reason for us to be back here a year or so from now indicating that we have had another flood, a billion-dollar flood-- maybe less, maybe more--and that we may have lost lives in that future event.

My hope is that, while this amendment is not in order--and I accept the ruling of the Chair--my hope is that we will find a means by which we will do sooner that which we will do later, spend the $311 million after we have had additional billion-dollar floods.

This amendment makes good sense. It is a commonsense solution.

I thank the ranking member for her very kind words and the opportunity that she has accorded me.

I thank you, Mr. Simpson, for being so generous as well.

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Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. As he knows, I believe his word is as good as gold.

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