John Culberson: “I thank Chairman Frelinghuysen and Speaker Ryan for rejecting the Office of Management and Budget's completely…”

“I thank Chairman Frelinghuysen and Speaker Ryan for rejecting the Office of Management and Budget's completely inadequate funding request that they sent to Congress. It is the job of the Appropriations Committee and Congress to write these emergency spending bills, and we have done so. I am one of eight subcommittee chairmen who held public hearings at the request of the chairman. I want to thank Chairman Frelinghuysen for listening to all of us to change the legislation to ensure that the State of Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico are a long way towards being made whole. This is a tremendous step in the right direction. We are grateful for the funding that is contained here. We are also grateful for a lot of the changes that the chairman and the committee have included. For example, we have got $12 billion here for the Army Corps of Engineers' projects that is going to be prioritized and targeted to areas that have suffered repeated floods over the last 2 years, to areas that have been declared disasters by the President. That will help ensure that the people of Texas, in particular, who had 53 inches of rain over an area the size of New Jersey, the people of Texas and southwest Louisiana who suffered from Hurricane Harvey, those projects will receive priority consideration by the Army Corps of Engineers. That is going to help us get that third reservoir built in northwest Harris County.…”