President Donald Trump speaks as first woman Melania Trump, left, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott hear throughout a roundtable dialogue with first responders and native officers at Hill Nation Youth Occasion Heart in Kerrville, Texas, throughout a tour to look at flood injury July 11.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
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Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Simply over two weeks since floods within the Texas Hill Nation killed greater than 130 individuals, Texas lawmakers begin a particular legislative session as we speak with the intention of funding restoration and defending from future disasters.
This spring they did not move a invoice that would have led to elevated spending for emergency warning techniques. Now particular committees of the Home and Senate plan to go to Kerrville, the world with essentially the most flood fatalities, to listen to concerning the life-saving assist native governments want.
They will be working whereas there’s uncertainty on the nationwide degree concerning the Federal Emergency Administration Company (FEMA), an company unsure after calls from members of the Trump administration that or not it’s reduce or eradicated.
There have been already plans for a particular session this month on the completely totally different subject of legal guidelines to control gross sales of hemp merchandise. However Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, in his proclamation calling the session, led with flood-related issues.
And catastrophe reduction wasn’t all he added to the session, which may last as long as 30 days. He is additionally together with a listing of controversial GOP priorities. They embrace redrawing congressional voting districts in ways in which would affect the 2026 midterm elections and tightening legal guidelines towards treatment abortion. Listed here are among the points at stake.
Flood proposals vary from new alerts to rebuilding
Abbott is asking that lawmakers enhance early warning techniques, strengthen communications infrastructure and supply reduction cash for areas impacted by the current flood or future floods.
One of many first concepts for what precisely lawmakers ought to do got here from Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the chief of the Texas Senate, when he spoke to Fox Information after the storm.
“Had we had sirens alongside this space up and down, the identical kind of sirens that they’ve in Israel when there’s an assault coming that may have blown very loudly, it is attainable that that may’ve saved a few of these lives.” Patrick stated.
He desires these in place by subsequent summer season, when youth camps like those destroyed within the flooding will likely be working once more.
Payments already filed embrace proposals to tighten flood security requirements at youth camps and to create a flood catastrophe information for volunteer organizations.
To listen to from flood victims themselves, lawmakers are touring to Kerrville, Texas, alongside the devastated banks of the Guadalupe River, for a public listening to July 31.
Texas leaders have Trump’s backing however FEMA’s future is unclear
Members of a search and rescue staff go to a memorial wall for flood victims in Kerrville, Texas.
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Eric Homosexual/AP
The federal authorities’s means to assist the state – or not – will issue into the session. President Trump and Gov. Abbott are Republican allies and the state’s relying on federal assist. In Abbott’s name for the session, he proposed utilizing state cash to match catastrophe reduction grants from FEMA.
However Trump, and others within the administration, have proposed eliminating FEMA. Abbott himself has been important of the company and is on a council fashioned to alter it.
In June, Trump stated the company ought to, “give out much less cash.” However Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, of Texas, stated lately President Trump instructed him, “something Texas wants, the reply is sure.”
If Texas lawmakers find yourself counting on FEMA assist, it might enhance strain to protect the company. However there’s additionally the chance that the shut Trump-Abbott alliance might result in workarounds that ship federal cash to Texas whereas FEMA itself and its means to assist different states is scaled down.
Texas and the U.S. can do extra on flood administration
Specialists say that when lawmakers get collectively to discover choices, they should not restrict themselves to North America to search out options. For the most effective examples, Upmanu Lall, director of the Columbia Water Heart at Columbia College in New York, says lawmakers ought to look abroad.
“China is putting in sensors for rainfall, sensors for depth of water on the street, sensors for the depth of the water in sewer system, and within the rivers,” Lall stated. He says these sensors can ship again information to provide emergency officers an actual time image of what is happening.
With the state centered on the floods within the Hill Nation, there may very well be competitors from different flood-prone areas the place officers have been requesting funds for years. The Texas Water Improvement Board printed The State Flood Plan in December. It ranks the state’s most pressing flood prevention wants, which might altogether price over $54 billion.
Houston Democratic state Rep. Ann Johnson is on the Home committee tasked with discovering options for the impacted areas. She says the main target cannot simply be on addressing this one catastrophe.
“I believe Kerrville is a reminder that there is a purpose we have to get these items achieved and handed in preparation for the subsequent occasion,” she stated. “As a result of it is not a query of whether or not or not Texans are going to endure an excessive climate occasion, it is simply when,”
Throughout a press convention Abbott stated, “We’ll work on each single answer to verify issues like this do not occur once more, not simply on this group, however in different river basins throughout the state additionally.”
However these options must match inside a big however nonetheless restricted finances.
Redistricting, abortion medication and native points might push the deadline
There are few hotter political points than the maps that define districts for members of the U.S. Home of Representatives and Abbott has added that to the session’s to-do listing. It comes on the urging of Trump. On Tuesday, he instructed reporters on the White Home he believes redistricting might assist Republicans choose up as many as 5 seats within the upcoming midterm Congressional elections.
Democratic State Rep. Johnson thinks the try and redistrict outdoors the same old 10-year census cycle is prohibited. “That ought to concern all Texans. We’re not in a redistricting cycle,” she stated. Normally, redistricting is finished after census figures are launched early within the decade.
Abbott has additionally requested lawmakers to tighten state legal guidelines towards abortion rights or, because the proclamation says, “additional defending unborn kids.” This seems to incorporate proposals to make it simpler to sue individuals or firms that ship abortion treatment to the state.
The governor’s name additionally opens the door to laws limiting entry for transgender individuals to some “sex-segregated areas,” like bogs or locker rooms.
After which there’s the unique purpose the session was thought of earlier than the flood. That was to move a ban on gross sales of THC merchandise to individuals beneath 21, amongst different rules for the state’s booming hemp trade. Abbott vetoed a invoice that may have banned hemp merchandise outright.
Blaise Gainey covers politics for KUT and The Texas Newsroom.
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