Sheila Jackson Lee: “I thank Chairman DeFazio and Ranking Member Graves for answering the plea of so many of us in relation to our districts.…”

“I thank Chairman DeFazio and Ranking Member Graves for answering the plea of so many of us in relation to our districts. I thank subcommittee chairwoman, Mrs. Napolitano, and Ranking Member Westerman. Mr. Speaker, I am glad for all these years I have been working on issues dealing collectively with our Houston port or bayous and the flooding crisis that we have in Houston, Texas, Harris County. I am glad that this legislation authorizes the Houston Ship Channel Expansion Improvement Project, part of my district, the Federal contribution to which is approximately $463 million. I remember standing at the edge of our port looking at the mud collecting and impeding the going and coming of those vessels. It authorizes the construction of all 34 pending Corps Chief's Reports received since the enactment of WRDA; Authorizes 35 feasibility studies for water resources development projects; And directs the Corps, which we have worked with, to expedite the completion of 41 feasibility studies currently underway, including the Houston Regional Watershed Assessment, Flood Risk Management feasibility study, which I have introduced over and over again. It is now going to move. It fully unlocks the approximately $10 billion currently held in the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund.…”