Date: 2016-06-08
Speaker: GENE GREEN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. I thank my colleague and namesake from Houston. Congressman AL GREEN. I appreciate his effort. both on the legislation that we are cosponsors of. but also setting up these Special Orders. It is great to have bipartisan support. As we found out in Houston. it doesnt matter if you are a Democrat or a Republican. If your house gets flooded. your cars get flooded. in some cases. the lives of your family and your neighbors are in jeopardy. as Texans. we work together. I have watched this over the years because we have had some terrible floods over the years. whether it be Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. Hurricane Ike in 2008. or what we are seeing now in May of 2015. which we called the Memorial Day flooding that was devastating and included more than 11 inches of rain and $3 billion in damage. But in April of 2016. this year. Houston and areas experienced what we call the devastating tax day flooding on April 18 that claimed lives and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. In the last 3 weeks. just before Memorial Day. we also have seen historic rainfalls and subsequent flooding. The rain in the Houston area has ceased. but downstream in Brazoria County is my colleague from Fort Bend. just southwest of Houston. the flooding has continued. An estimated 200.000 residents. nearly twothirds of the population of Brazoria County. have been affected by the flooding. Once again. I stand before this body while southeast Texas is under water. Once again. I stand with my Houston colleagues and ask the House of Representatives to give our constituents the resources we need to protect lives and property in the future. I have worked with my colleague. AL GREEN. on H.R. 5025. to appropriate $311 million to complete our bayou system. These projects are not imaginary. They are ideas that would help. and these projects during the process would save lives. These are projects that the Corps of Engineers have said that they have approved. We just dont have the money to complete them. In the Houston area. we have a number of bayou systems that actually start in Congressman OLSONS. Congressman AL GREENS. Congressman CULBERSONS. and Congressman MCCAULs districts. But it runs through my area because I have the eastern side of Harris County. where Buffalo Bayou and the Houston Ship Channel are located. We are downstream from those. and we see that flooding ourselves. I ask the House to bring our bill to the floor and to help mitigate the suffering of these thousands of Texans. Earlier this month. our office received early notification that the United States is entering hurricane season as of June 1. Once again. the problem could be expanded. Like I said earlier. in 2001. Tropical Storm Allison hit the Texas Gulf Coast and devastated my area of east and north Houston. In 2008. Hurricane Ike caused citywide flooding and hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. Again. it came over our district in east Harris County. Now we face another hurricane season with the possibility of extended damage and no protection for our vulnerable citizens. Houstonians continue to suffer the effects of Mother Nature. and we have the ability to help them. The President has declared Houston a disaster area a number of times. Again. with hurricane season upon us. we would like to see that Congress responds and acts on H.R. 5025 as the best option now. [ 1930 Again. these are flood control projects that have been approved. We just dont have the money. Of course. in Houston. Harris County. we have a flood control district that we pay our property tax to. They have to come up with a match for the Federal funding. so it is not all Federal funding taking care of our problems. It is actually local folks also paying up to be able to keep our houses and homes from flooding and our families and neighbors from drowning. Again. I ask my colleagues to support H.R. 5025. I want to thank my colleague. AL GREEN. for his leadership on this. We will continue to ask our colleagues to help even through this hurricane season. It doesnt end until typically the end of October. Again. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.