Reintroducing the Texas Maritime Caucus

Last week, Rep. Randy Weber, Rep. Brian Babin and Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson and I reintroduced the Texas Maritime Caucus. The mission of the caucus is to promote Texas ports and waterway districts, illustrate the importance of the ports and waterways to areas of the state and nation beyond the Gulf of Mexico and advocate for changes in current law to facilitate optimal import and export of cargo and the transportation of passengers.

As part of our reintroduction, the Texas Maritime Caucus held a Ports Roundtable, where members of the caucus and representatives from Texas ports, including the Port of Corpus Christi and the Port of Victoria, were able to discuss issues affecting Texas shipping and work towards solutions to solve them. Texas Ports employ more than five million people and create more than $1 billion in economic revenue annually. I’m hopeful that under the Trump Administration we will get regulations out of the way so we can get moving and improve our ports. President Trump’s commitment to infrastructure and deregulation will be good for our ports.

Two other Texas members that attended the Ports Roundtable were Rep. Pete Olson and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.