San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Texan pushes to add Ike Dike to Biden bill
WASHINGTON — As congressional Democrats hash out a plan to spend more than $2 trillion on the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, it’s unclear how much — if any — of that money would go toward a longsought barrier to protect the Texas Gulf Coast from catastrophic storm surge.
But at least one Texas Democrat is making it her mission to ensure the package includes funding for the latest version of the socalled Ike Dike, a proposed $26 billion project that would fundamentally alter the Southeast Texas coastline.
“This is the time to make the case,” U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher said.
Fletcher is telling the Biden administration and Democrats on key committees drafting the infrastructure bill that the Ike Dike isn’t just a project to protect Texas. If storm surge were to head north into the Houston Ship Channel and shut down the Port of Houston — the busiest port in the country and home to much of the nation’s petrochemical industry — it would have “dire” economic consequences for the entire nation, the Houston Democrat recently testified to a House committee.
“The potential environmental and human catastrophe that would come from that storm surge … it’s beyond anything I think our country has ever seen,” Fletcher said in an interview with Hearst Newspapers. “People need to know and understand that.”
However, Fletcher may be facing an uphill battle even with a fellow Democrat in the White House.
President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan doesn’t include specific projects, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says it’s too early to say whether even some of the $50 billion that the plan earmarks to gird against storms would help fund the Ike Dike.
Meanwhile, delegations from other states are revving up efforts to secure funding for their own projects, though the White House plan would dole out the funding to states through grant programs.
“Obviously every member is going to have something in their district or state they’re going to want to bring home and show they’re doing something,” said Bill Stahlman, a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Committee on America’s Infrastructure. “Whether it’s a small, local, rural bridge that needs to be rebuilt or on the magnitude of the Ike Dike … they all have value to that community.”
The country has a massive backlog of infrastructure needs, including highways, bridges, ports and airports. The Ike Dike will have to compete for funding with those projects. Meanwhile other major projects, such as the Gateway Tunnel between New York and New Jersey, are further along and may have an easier time getting funding through the package.
“There’s probably $2 trillion worth of infrastructure backlog in the country,” said William Fulton, director of Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research.
The need for the coastal barrier has been discussed since Hurricane Ike in 2008. A Category 2 storm with 110 mph winds, Ike caused roughly 15 to 20 feet of storm surge on Bolivar Peninsula and in parts of Chambers County. It led to loss of life and $20 billion in
damage.
The White House has pointed to an ongoing Army Corps of Engineers study of the Ike Dike, which will need to be completed before federal funding starts flowing to the project.
The barrier proposal
calls for a gated structure stretching across the mouth of Galveston Bay and the Ship Channel. It also calls for 43 miles of dunes protecting the Galveston and Bolivar Peninsula coastline, as well as a “ring levee” that would protect the north side of Galveston island. The entire project, which includes ecosystem restoration extending southwest to South Padre Island, is expected to cost $26 billion, with the dunes and sea gate at the Ship Channel alone accounting for $14 billion to $18 billion of that total. Once fully constructed, the Corps estimates the project will save $2.2 billion in storm damages every year.
A bill has been introduced in the Texas Legislature to create a regional district that could levy taxes and issue bonds to build and maintain the barrier.
Fulton said there is a separate emerging category of increasingly needed climate-related projects — and the Ike Dike could be a new face for that.
Proposals would rebuild the Lower Manhattan shoreline to gird against storms after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Miami is facing rapid sea level rise and is working on raising streets because of flooding. Sea level rise is also threatening the Bay Area in California, threatening sewer systems.
“I think the Ike Dike might be the poster child for a new generation of really large climate adaptation related projects,” Fulton said.
Fletcher is pushing to create a funding stream for coastal resiliency projects like the Ike Dike. That would appear in line with the $50 billion the White House pitched for resiliency, though Buttigieg recently described those projects as “partly just being built into the kind of investments we’re making in roads and rail, ports and airports and transit and trains.”
The second-term Democrat, meanwhile, is working to get more of the Texas delegation behind her push.
“I do think you’re going to see support from our delegation because it’s so important for our region,” she said. “We see other delegations making pushes for different kinds of things … I think this project is of that kind of significance, and it’s important we’re out there talking about it. I do think it’s important to make the case for the national importance of this project.”
At least one other Houston Democrat said he supports the effort to get the coastal barrier in the infrastructure package.
“It’s something we can do. The question is, do we have the will to do it,” said U.S. Rep. Al Green, chairman of the Texas Democratic delegation. “It would be important, I think, for all of us to see it included in a package. And I think it would be easy for the public to understand it.”
Fletcher said she’s reaching out to Republican members of the delegation as well, despite GOP opposition to Biden’s infrastructure plan.
Still, Texas Republicans in Congress have supported the Ike Dike, including U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, who in 2018 authored legislation to expedite the Army Corps study.
“We will work hard to make sure that coastal protection plan is funded,” Cornyn said at the time.
Senate Republicans have released an infrastructure plan totaling $568 billion, and Cornyn told Fox News on April 18 there’s “a core infrastructure bill that we could pass” that could cover roads and bridges and even improved broadband access. “So let’s do it and leave the rest for another day and another fight,” Cornyn said.
Whether even a bipartisan deal would include funding for the Ike Dike remains to be seen.