On the recordSeptember 7, 2017
I want to quickly thank the gentlewoman from the great State of Minnesota, thank the gentleman from California, and just very quickly say that I come with my amendments, but I also come just to acknowledge the pending storm in Florida and Hurricane Harvey because our arts communities were underwater, and they are still underwater. I offered amendments that deal with preservation of heritage areas, urban reforestation, and the Smithsonian outreach. I thank my colleagues for putting it in the en bloc. But as I do so, I want to take note of, again, all of the debris and be able to say that, in the course of hurricanes, historic entities are impacted. We are looking to establish an emancipation trail, and one of my most important amendments is to ensure that there is national policy to preserve, for public use, historic sites, buildings, and objects of national significance for the inspiration and benefit of people of the United States. My community is looking for that emancipation trail, but it starts from Galveston. We have not yet been able to assess whether any of those historic markers and places were destroyed by Hurricane Harvey. So the funding for the Interior Department and the aspects that come under the Interior Department, the jurisdictional issue is very important to us because we will have to look to see if our historic entities have been preserved.…
