A call for a special session

The Texas Legislature needs to get to work on these issues now, before the storm surge of urgency subsides.

DRIVING down the streets in disasterstricken neighborhoods and seeing the mounds of debris piled outside flooded homes, all of us can now bear witness to the hard work that lies ahead. Homeowners must do their best to replace the wrecked furniture and the ruined appliances, contractors must haul away the soaked carpet and spoiled sheetrock, and neighbors will help neighbors recover from Hurricane Harvey.

Beyond the flood-ravaged streets of southeast Texas, the time has also come for some hard work in the halls of power. At a point in history when we’re asking for an extraordinary amount of aid from the nation’s capital, it’s important that our state government also does its part. After all, Texas has never been content to rely on Washington.

This is a moment for leadership from Austin. Gov. Greg Abbott must call a special session of the Texas Legislature to deal with the aftermath of this unprecedented disaster.

Wealthy homeowners along the Energy Corridor have seen lifetime investments washed away by floodwaters. Working class families in Greenspoint risk falling into an insurmountable chasm of poverty. However, our fear is that the destruction, albeit vast, will become invisible to those who live their lives on freeways and don’t venture into neighborhoods near a bayou, reservoir or coastline.

Normalcy can become seductive. News cycles will quickly move on to the next crisis and, like after Hurricane Ike, national attention will fade away while recovery and resilience plans go ignored.

It will not be enough to simply ask the Legislative Budget Board or Texas Education Commissioner to free up funds. As we’ve written before, this is our seawall moment.

Never again will our fellow Texans share such a profound sense of political urgency over flood control issues. Waiting two years for the next regular session of the Legislature would squander a singular opportunity to achieve ambitious goals and fulfill an agenda that would protect our coastline for generations to come. We also have no idea when the next huge storm will strike; waiting until the 2019 legislative session may only put us in a position of procrastinating until another of what are becoming annual 500-year floods.

Our governor proved in his last call for a special session that he’s comfortable setting ambitious goals for state lawmakers. No corner of our city was left untouched by Harvey. Rich and poor, black and white, Democratic and Republican — we all need the Texas Legislature to muster the same political energy that was harnessed for the governor’s prior special session.

But this time there should be no patience for partisan gamesmanship. People are dead. Our elected officials must prove they can do the serious business of governance without launching into sideshows about transgender bathrooms or school vouchers. The future of Texas’ largest city is at stake. If Austin fails to act, it is a message that Houston must go it alone and that state government is willing to kick important issues down the road.

A week ago on this page, we listed 12 priorities for the region. Below are the items that Abbott can positively affect by way of a special session. Even if some complex issues cannot be resolved in a 30-day session, putting them on the table will at least spur urgent and long overdue debate under the pink dome.

1.Clear the path for a coastal storm surge barrier

Here are the stakes: Houston without oil is Cleveland. Boomtown becomes a second-tier city. The Legislature must step up to protect the Houston Ship Channel and its surrounding petrochemical complexes from a hurricane’s storm surge. This is more than local self-interest. The entire national energy economy relies on our pipelines and refineries. We’re responsible for more than half of the country’s jet fuel and nearly one-third of U.S. oil-refining capacity.

Federal funding will be necessary for this critical public safety project, but our state government has to play a pivotal role. Land Commissioner George P. Bush took the lead when he asked the Trump administration for $15 billion to construct a coastal barrier system stretching from Orange to Brazoria County. But even though political support for this life-saving proposal is widespread, a piece of state legislation that could have moved it a step closer to reality died in this year’s regular session. State Sen. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, and State Rep. Wayne Faircloth, R-Galveston, introduced a bill — House Bill 4308 — that would have put an agency in charge of operating and maintaining the proposed barrier. Their legislation also would have created a Coastal Spine Advisory Board that would disband after the barrier is built. State lawmakers let this bill die last spring, but they need to pass it in a special session. Appointing a government entity to operate and maintain the storm-surge barrier would demonstrate to Congress that Texas is dead serious about this expensive but essential project.

2 .Dip into the Rainy Day Fund to accelerate flood prevention projects After Tropical Storm Allison, the Harris County Flood Control District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers conceived a joint project to spend about $480 million on flood prevention in the Brays Bayou watershed. Project Brays was supposed to be completed in 2014.

Delays and funding problems have kicked the timeline down to 2021, and that’s little comfort for the Meyerland homes that flooded — yet again — after Harvey.

Project Brays is just one of many shovel-ready construction projects along Brays Bayou, Clear Creek, Greens Bayou, Hunting Bayou and White Oak Bayou that have been stuck in slow motion due to lack of funding. The Texas Legislature must accelerate these bridge replacements, detention ponds and widening and deepening measures by tapping the $10 billion Economic Stabilization Fund, also known as the Rainy Day Fund, and create a stream of state dollars down to Harris County. The Harris County Flood Control District has about $26 billion worth of needed infrastructure upgrades. Texans don’t pay their taxes so that billions can sit unused in a bank account while our cities suffer. Now is the time to act.

Additionally, the Addicks and Barker reservoirs are insufficient as flood control barriers. If they fail, all agree the result would be catastrophic. There is unity among academics, engineers and elected officials of all stripes to construct a third water retention structure. The Legislature must take the first steps toward the long-term work necessary to build infrastructure of this magnitude.

3.Establish a regional flood control authority

Mother Nature pays no attention to the arbitrary lines we draw between cities and counties. Flood control decisions made in one county can have a profound impact on people living in other communities downstream. Yet we’ve tackled this problem with piecemeal efforts divided between a host of government jurisdictions. As the Chronicle’s Mike Snyder recently documented, Fort Bend County alone has 14 different levee improvement districts that aren’t connected with each other; two of them cover a single real estate development. After the catastrophe wrought by Harvey, mayors and county judges who customarily resist relinquishing any of their authority must recognize the need for and work with a regional institution dedicated to drainage issues. This body should have the ability to assess and collect taxes that will be spent on much-needed flood control infrastructure.

4 .Grant ordinance-making powers in unincorporated Harris County It’s hard for Harris County officials to get serious about flood control with their hands tied behind their backs. Unlike city governments, Texas counties have no power to pass ordinances. Our county judges and commissioners have needed state permission simply to adopt their own rules regulating game rooms and massage parlors, and they can’t do much to regulate land use in ways that would mitigate flood problems. That needs to change. Harris County’s unincorporated areas are home to more than 2 million people, a population as big as the state of New Mexico. Just as it would be absurd for New Mexico to have no power to adopt its own laws, the model for governing the state’s largest county needs to evolve for the 21st century. This means allowing the county government to write its own rules, or compelling the unincorporated areas to join existing cities or form their own municipalities.

5.Preserve undeveloped prairie

Houstonians could once rely on extensive coastal prairie land to help absorb the worst deluges before the runoff reached our neighborhoods. That was before developers spent decades paving over massive tracts of wetlands and grasslands, directing the rain into our flood-prone streams, bayous and reservoirs. Legislators must help preserve the remaining undeveloped prairie around Houston.

During the 2017 session, legislators passed House Bill 2943, which would have allowed the State Water Pollution Control Revolving Fund to finance conservation easements. Abbott vetoed the bill. The governor now has the chance to set things right and sign a new version.

The Texas Farm and Ranch Lands Conservation Program could also use more funding and a more robust mission to prevent farms and ranches in key watersheds from being turned into suburban asphalt.

6.Strengthen renter rights in disaster zones

Homeowners struck by floodwaters have it bad enough, but Harvey has dramatically highlighted the problems natural disasters pose for renters. The storm struck just before the first of the month, causing unexpected problems for people renting flood damaged homes and apartments. Even if they survived without any flood damage, tenants who missed work and missed paychecks also missed lease payments because of the storm. Although many landlords have been working with their tenants during the crisis, far too many property managers have played hardball by threatening evictions and gouging storm victims with larcenous late fees. Meanwhile, a vaguely worded state law allows landlords and tenants to void leases on homes that are “totally unusable” without defining what that term means. And state law allows landlordspeople grantedto discriminatehousing vouchersagainst after losing their homes. Our Legislature needs to address the myriad problems renters faced in the wake this storm.

7.Help our schools

All over the Gulf Coast, traumatized students are starting the year at schools damaged by Harvey or are being relocated to unfamiliar schools unscathed by the flooding. Teachers in more than 200 affected districts must return to their jobs while their own homes remain in disrepair. Bus drivers who have no place to live, nurses who have another family living with them, cafeteria workers who have been evicted from their apartments are all trying to do their duty for our kids.

This extraordinary situation requires an extraordinary response from the Legislature. Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath has announced plans to create extra funding for Harvey without legislative approval. That won’t be enough. The Legislature must go above and beyond to ensure our schools have the money needed to repair their flooded buildings and cover the costs of delivering mental health services to traumatized students. Also, academic accountability ratings must be suspended for schools in counties declared disaster areas. Our teachers deserve the flexibility to focus on the immediate needs of students, rather than burdening them with drill-and-kill exercises for mandatory standardized tests.