With hurricanes an annual threat, Texas wants president trump to make good on a campaign promise of major infrastructure projects.
Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush has written to the Trump administration asking for Washington to fund a coastal barrier system for the Upper Texas coast.
The coastal barrier system would require $15 billion in federal funds to protect the area.
David Green of the Texas Land Office tells NewsRadio 740 KTRH that the system would combine natural elements like sand dunes with manmade additions such as gate systems and jetties.
He says it's especially needed in the Houston/Galveston Bay area – as evidenced by the value of property and shipping commerce in the region as well the brutal destructive power of hurricanes, as Ike proved in 2008.
Bush's letter to the president is co-signed by more than 60 officials.
Green says a barrier system would help keep a national gateway of commerce clear as well as take care of our own.
The letter is cosigned by more than 60 Texas leaders including members of the Texas Legislature, 21 coastal mayors, six county judges, and more than two dozen members of the business and education communities.
"The Texas coast possesses an extensive port system that is crucial not only to the United States' economy but also to our national security," Bush wrote. "Building the proposed coastal barrier system is a historic opportunity to safeguard our nation's economy, our national security and millions of citizens' lives and livelihood."
The Houston-Galveston Bay area is responsible for 428 million tons of cargo annually. It’s a region that produces more than 3 million direct and indirect jobs nationwide -- “yet remains largely unprotected from storm surge nearly a decade after Hurricane Ike devastated the upper coast of Texas, killing 74 people and causing $29.5 billion in damage,” the Texas Land Office notes.