Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush said Wednesday he would ask the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to directly send Harris County $750 million in flood mitigation aid related to Hurricane Harvey, days after his agency declined to award the county any money for their proposed projects.
The snub sparked an intense and immediate backlash from Houston-area Democrats and Republicans, who demanded that Bush revise the General Land Office’s metrics for doling out $2.1 billion in federal relief for flood projects. The officials noted that Houston bore the brunt of the historic hurricane, yet had failed to secure one cent from the initial $1 billion round of funding.
In a statement, Bush blamed the situation on federal “red tape requirements and complex regulations” that he described as a “hallmark” of the Biden administration. He said the Land Office, which administers Texas’ federal disaster relief, had been delayed in distributing the Harvey funds by the U.S. Housing Department, which did not publish rules regulating the use of the money until two years after Harvey. That happened under the administration of former president Donald Trump.
Bush said he had directed GLO officials to “work around the federal government’s regulations” by seeking the direct allocation, though he did not say which regulations had prevented the agency from awarding the money to Harris County itself.
A GLO spokeswoman said the $750 million, if approved by HUD, would go directly to Harris County. The county could then decide to send some of the money to the city for its own mitigation projects.
Mayor Sylvester Turner said Bush’s plan would still leave the city with only a fraction of the $4.3 billion approved by Congress in 2018 to help Texas prevent future flooding. Turner and other local officials have long insisted Houston and Harris County should receive roughly half of that amount, which they say would align with their initial share of Texas’ housing recovery aid and the proportion of damage taken on by the Houston area during Hurricane Harvey.
“Harris County should receive $1 billion and the City of Houston should receive $1 billion,” Turner said. “All Commissioner Bush has to do is amend his state plan to provide that direct allocation to the city of Houston and to Harris County.”
[…]
A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development disputed the Land Office’s account, saying state officials have “full responsibility and jurisdiction over who gets the money.” While HUD must sign off on the GLO’s plan for distributing the funds, there did not appear to be any HUD guidance that required the state to use the criteria opposed by the city and county.
See here, here, and here for the background. A succinct summary of this saga:
.
1. Great news for Harris County
2. Trump HUD wrote these rules
3. Nothing in the Trump HUD rules forced TX to adopt the specific criteria it did— Zach Despart (@zachdespart) 8:12 PM – 26 May 2021
Also, too, the $750 million is a bit more than half of the $1.34 billion Houston and Harris County had asked for, and the GLO did not say if this would be the total amount Houston and Harris would get or if this would somehow be carved out of the initial $2.1 billion allocation, and if so what would happen to the grants that had been made. But other than that, great job, Bushie! The Trib and Campos, who knows what the “P” in “P Bush” stands for, have more.
I have already fact checked this. The people in the media and the Camposes and others have little to no experience or understanding of how federal funding works.
The bottom line that I can determine is that the City of Houston and Harris County put in applications that were not competitive. COH tried to get the GLO to change the metrics, which is unfair to those jurisdictions that already put in competitive applications and a magic wand would then cause their application to have a lower score.
Bush twittering that this is due to complex red tape that is a hallmark of the Biden administration is either a lack of understanding of how government funding works, or a deception. Just because he’s appointed to a patronage position in government doesn’t mean he understands how it works.
The use of the funding is determined by the CFDA category (Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance), and must fit into the broad category specified when the money is allocated.
Without reading the original block grant, the city application, and the state RFA, there is no way to determine anything, and assuming motivations is purely speculative. Let’s keep in mind though, that Mayor Turner is found by HUD to be a poor steward of HUD funding and a supporter of segregation in housing.
Campos is also a racist. He supports kids in cages. I read Campos stating that it is great how Biden’s boss, Mrs. Harris, doesn’t respond to the media wanting her to do a press conference about the kids in cages, unlike Trump. Campos is wrong. Trump’s weakness was responding to the media with tantrums and childish insults. However, the Biden regime is NOT transparent and is a return to a brutal, racist normal of violence and racism, with kids still in cages, and Mrs. Harris has not even gone to the border.
Please focus on facts. I am an independent fact checker, dedicated to getting the facts out so that YOU can make your own educated decision. Instead of believing the media appointed experts who told us that the Covid lab leak theory was just conspiracy nonsense, and now, we see that it may in fact be true. Those experts should be stripped of their credentials and left to work for the minimum wage, which we can hope will be raised to $15/hour.
Distinct smell of Q around here…
Frederick, it might be time for your diaper change.
Hochman: Your puerile potty humor is not that funny. Maybe you will learn that when you reach the age or state of poor bladder or rear-end control, and will be thankful for the invention of adult diapers yourself.
Meanwhile, try to show some empathy for those already in the state of know and appreciation for all things that make life and living better. Including care providers.
From GLO money to G.P. Bush tweets to Sly Turner being a housing segregationist to Kamala not adhering to her critic’s schedules to a Covid lab leak and minimum wage concerns…
I, for one. am glad Dr. Hochman is on this blog to expose the Deep State forces attempting to shape our State and Nation. His indepth knowledge and keen clarity of the facts is a welcome breath of fresh air.
C.L.
Why don’t you watch Kamala humiliate our US Naval Academy graduates during her speech to them:
https://gab.com/Cynthia_Holt/posts/106314341292684513
Yay! We’ll be using wind and solar power to fight on the battlefield, and how empowering will it be for our female defenders to unroll a solar panel to call in an airstrike. Stunning. And. Brave. Especially at night.
C.L., not trying to get all puffed up here, but I do know a little about how federal grants and contracts work. I simply point out that if you want to accuse Prestone Bush of intentionally and unfairly cutting Houston off from Harvey relief funding, more research is needed. Bush did lie or err in his statement that the Biden administration red tape caused this. There has been red tape to get government funding for years; and it is increasing. I pointed that out as well.
Indeed, you should be able to follow that for months, we heard from “experts” and “fact checkers” who assured us that the Wuhan lab leak theory was purely “conspiracy” or “Trump racism” and there was absolutely no evidence for this. Now, we see the Science is pointing to a good possibility for a lab leak, and Biden is hailed as hero because he wants an audit on his desk within 90 days. Even you should be shaken in your faith in the news media and the experts. If you still believe that we are just getting the facts from the news and the experts, I’m sorry, I can’t help you, you have been brainwashed.
Dr. Hochman, I believe what the MSN puts out about as much as I believe you, Bill, Lobo, Manny, Mr. Fegan, etc.
Bill, do you think everyone is as dense as you are the other far-right crazies?
You, idiots, make mountains out of molehills to attempt to make progressives seem as stupid as your kind.
Hi C.L., I am a little more credible than the MSM. I give you the facts, not some commentary dressed as facts. I don’t jump to the conclusion that Prescott Bush did some special magic to stop Houston from getting funded. I can’t rule it out, either. I have given you instructions on how to do more research to get a better picture. You may do so. I don’t plan to pursue it to that extent. I will, of course, if you hire my Independent Fact Checker service, at $212 per billable hour, plus expenses, such as the charge for a FOIA request.
FROM INVISIBLE HAND TO HANDS-ON EFFORTs TO CREATE A BETTER FUTURE
Being progressive can mean lots of things to different people.
At its core, progressivism involves a belief that human progress (in the sense of improvement) is possible, and that action can and should be taken to make it happen. It’s the corollary of the Enlightenment and scientific inquiry, applied to the political realm.
Empirical inquiry plays a key role for the acquisition of knowledge and the design of effective and efficient means to achieve desirable societal goals.
Even T. Rex was a progressive, despite his atavistic blood lust.
For some historical perspective, start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era
COGITAMUS ERGO SUMUS
For folks who have not let their ability to think wither, interesting parallels to what we face today can be found. And they are worth exploring.
—
Blog post genre tag: Food for thought.
Topic: history of ideas – political philosophy
Bill: “Yay! We’ll be using wind and solar power to fight on the battlefield, and how empowering will it be for our female defenders to unroll a solar panel to call in an airstrike. Stunning. And. Brave. Especially at night.”
if only there were a way to store energy so that it could be used later. i’d look up the online research on that daunting problem, but my phone is charging.
Joel,
You obviously didn’t listen to her speech, which I linked for you. You don’t need 20 pounds of batteries when you can unroll some solar panels! The science is settled. And hey, 20 pounds of batteries….that’s heavy, for our female warriors, apparently.
“Ask any Marine today. Would SHE rather carry 20 pounds of batteries, or would SHE rather carry a rolled up solar panel.”
~Kamala
It’s either or, Joel. Apparently unrolling a solar panel negates the need for that 20 pound battery.
Wolf,
I bet you’ve read Gulag Archipelago at some point. Question: Do you see any similarities between the progressivism described therein and the progressivism going on today in this country? Any concerns there?
LET’S LEAVE ASIDE THE POLEMICS ABOUT ENERGY STORAGE
The obvious answer is solar & batteries, but there are many ways to store energy, some long-established, albeit not available everywhere.
In the Alps, for example, they have for decades had a hydro-power installation with 2 reservoirs: one high up, one low down. When they need to generate, they open the flow controls to drive the generators to produce electricity. When the electric power from other sources is cheap because of ample supply, they use it to pump the water back up to the reservoir at the higher elevation, so they can tap it again later for use under demand-spike conditions. That’s an excellent way to optimize a grid system with a big intermittent energy generation (wind, solar) in the mix.
For English coverage, see here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-kaprun-hydroelectric-station-battery/
or Google “Kaprun Upper Stage Pumped Storage Power Plant”, which will take you the operator’s website (English version).
Also, Germany just hooked up with Norway (through a massive subsea interconnection close to 400 miles long) to tap their on-demand hydro power there, which will in future also permit North-South transfer of off-shore wind power.
“Norway’s electricity production is almost exclusively hydropower-based and its large reservoirs mean it can control its renewable energy generation and also help plug shortfalls in Germany’s intermittent supply from wind and solar plants.” Nora Buli, REUTERS (May 27, 2021). For more coverage, see “NordLink”.
Incidentally, Texas also has hydro-electric power in the mix, just not much.
Then there is farm-sized battery pack storage (already existing in Texas, with more on the way), and conversion of electric energy (when cheap) to hydrogen (by splitting H20 into its constituent atoms) and recombining the H with the O later to recapture the energy. Wind power is cheap when the wind is blowing.
See Glenk, Gunther and Reichelstein, Stefan, Economics of Converting Renewable Power to Hydrogen (February 25, 2019). Nature Energy 4, 216–222 (2019).
Available at SSRN, Abstract=3767877
Abstract: The recent sharp decline in the cost of renewable energy suggests that the production of hydrogen from renewable power through a Power-to-Gas process might become more economical. Here we examine this alternative from the perspective of an investor who considers a hybrid energy system that combines renewable power with an efficiently sized Power-to-Gas facility. The available capacity can be optimized in real time so as to take advantage of fluctuations in electricity prices and intermittent renewable power generation. We apply our model to the current environment in both Germany and Texas and find that renewable hydrogen is already cost competitive in niche applications (3.23 €/kg), though not yet for industrial-scale supply. This conclusion, however, is projected to change within a decade (2.50 €/kg) provided recent market trends continue in the coming years.
Idiots and crazies a la Bill, can think only of today and not of what tomorrow may bring. If everyone thought like the crazies right-wing Republicans we would still be moving things by horse and wagon.
I remember my first portable computer from Compaq;
https://www.silicon.co.uk/mobility/compaq-luggable-portable-computers-208323
First phone?
Ignore the idiots and crazies, we have three resident such that visit Kuffner.
Manny that is a good point, the old times were a bit better. I have two Western Electric Telephones, a 500 and a Princess, and I use them. They were made in the late 1950s and early 60s and still work today. You could buy a Smart phone today, and in 50 years from now, it will have been at the bottom of a landfill for 48 years.
We took bottles back to the grocery and beer distributor and got a refund for each bottle, and then they were refilled by the company.
Cars could be repaired, and could last a long time, but they were much more prone to rusting out, and not as competitive with fuel economy. But then again, we walked or rode bicycles a lot more. Horse and wagon would be good. It would reduce the amount of stuff being shipped. So much consumerism,leading to fuel wasted shipping junk we don’t need, that doesn’t make us happy, ends up in landfills, and, often, sends us to the poor house because we had to put it on a charge card.
I grew up without air conditioning and no indoor plumbing. So why not go back to that, Jason?
Why not use your typewriter to post on Kuffner, Jason? But, oops, you must put a 58 cent stamp on it and walk it to the post office or go by horse.
Wait, go back far enough there were no horses in the Americas.
Bottles back for refund (Jason)
Still the case in Germany (now automated through what might be called the inverse of a vending machine).
You pay the deposit when you buy the product, and get it back when you return it. Plastic bottles are shredded, though, rather than being refilled. See how it works here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHbkHeJLWn4
For a more elaborate explanation of the German system (in slow German with English subtitles) watch this charming German-Polish couple’s acculturation episode: “Bottle Deposit in Germany | Super Easy German (57)” on YouTube.
There is also mandatory separation of all trash into separate receptacles for recycling. Even in Italy.
Pingback: What are P Bush’s pledges worth? – Off the Kuff