Today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, gave the following statement at a Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations virtual hearing entitled, “CDBG Disaster Recovery: States, Cities, and Denials of Funding.” 

Thank you so very much, Chair Green. The disaster mitigation funding Congress has appropriated to Texas since 2018 was meant to finance infrastructure projects that would protect the most vulnerable communities from future disasters. Yet Texas awarded none of this money to Houston, which suffered the lion’s share of the damage from Hurricane Harvey.  

We know that hurricanes, wildfires, and other disasters are getting worse, endangering millions of Americans, their homes, and their businesses. To better prepare for future disasters, we must target mitigation funding directly to those who need it to protect those communities that are at highest risk. Today, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about what went wrong in Texas and how to better prevent misallocation of disaster relief in the future. 

Thank you so very much for paying attention to this very important issue Congressman Green. I yield back the balance remainder of my time.

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