Water Resources Development Act of 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of H.R. 8, the Water Resources Development Act of 2018. Our district, centered in Eastside and Northside Houston and eastern Harris County, was one of the most highly impacted by Hurricane Harvey. While we have passed emergency supplemental funding the Port of Houston and the Army Corps of Engineers have drastic needs for mitigating the damage done by Harvey.

The Port of Houston is the second busiest in the U.S. in terms of overall tonnage and the busiest in the U.S. in terms of foreign tonnage. Silt, from the bayous has drastically limited maneuverability and depth. The port had recently completed dredging to 45 feet. Many of the ships can no longer get through the channel due to hurricane damage. The disaster funding has not reached our ports.

The port currently estimates that first phase of recovery from the storm will cost an estimated $457 million dollars. The ship channel is the lifeblood of Houston. The energy renaissance that we have experienced in this country is also driven by industry that relies on the Port and the ship channel. It's absolutely essential to our district that we adequately fund corps projects that get the port back at their normal capacity.

Decades ago Congress created the Harbor Maintenance Fund, a tax on goods to keep our ports and harbors in good working order, and every year appropriators do not appropriate the needed funds. It is past time that we start putting all the money collected from port economic activity back into maintaining our ports.

Army Corps of Engineer projects go hand in hand with the health of our ports as well. Houston is a city of Bayous. When our Bayou's are damaged in a storm like Harvey the silt flows downstream into the ship channel. The turning basis, which was hit hard in the Tax Day Floods of 2016 has seen draft restrictions for over 1,300 days now.

These Army Corps projects don't just save money though, they create jobs. These improvements in this bill aren't theoretical, they're shovel ready projects the Corps has read to go.

The Army Corps of Engineers recently announced that it was allocating around $360 million to address high-priority needs for hurricane ravaged regions but unfortunately while many projects have been submitted to the Office of Management and Budget, no action has been take to clear these projects.

I call on Director Mulvaney to take immediate action on these needs so OMB won't stand as a roadblock to protecting my constituents as we enter a new hurricane season. I'd like to thank my colleagues on the Transportation and Infrastructure committee for crafting a Water Resources Development Act that addresses these pressing issues and urge my colleagues to support the bill.

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