Chairman Hines, distinguished members of the committee. My name is David A. Garza, Cameron County Commissioner, Precinct 3. I have served in this position since Jan. 1, 2001. I am also a small business owner that has owned and operated an independent pharmacy for the last 42 years. So, Ranking Member Steil, I know about the issues of drug overdose and things of that sort that occur in this world that we live in. I am very cognizant of the impact to families that they can cause.
But, doing all of that I still try to find time to improve the quality of life and create better opportunities for the local constituency. The lessons I have learned as a public servant have been that I can do little as one but I can do a lot when I collaborate with my fellow local leaders in creating a vision of where we would like to be, especially for the regional area of the Rio Grande Valley.
I have served on the TxDOT I-69 advisory committee. I have served on the I-69 Alliance group, an advocacy group for I-69 projects. I have served on the local MPO. And many other groups wanting to improve our local and state highway systems.
I-69 is a 1,600 mile long highway system that traverses eighth states from Texas to Michigan. It was congressionally designated as a corridor. It connects Mexico to Canada and it is a major corridor for goods movement to occur.
Texas is the gateway for U.S.-Mexico trade. In 2020, 65 percent of all the goods coming in from Mexico to the U.S. went through Texas. Recognizing the importance of high quality transportation is a necessity for our area to be able to compete nationally for industry and jobs. This has become a priority for us. Interstate highways are at the top of the site selection factors to attract new industry to an area.
But I do not want to spend more time telling you that the lack of federal investment on interstate system in the Valley has put us at a big disadvantage. I would rather tell you what we have done and continue to do to help us partner with federal and state agencies to continue the progress that we have done.
We believe that we at the local level put skin in the game. We want to be connected to major interstates north of us. The following is a result of what Texans along this route can do working together. In 2013, TxDOT dedicated $742 million for I-69. In 2018, the amount went up to $3.7 billion. In the current plan that is being proposed, to be adopted soon, there is $7.7 billion to be used on the I-69 corridor.
And at the local level we have started using innovative financial tools to help us partner with TxDOT to make projects come to fruition. Our counties locally have created regional mobility authorities, have encouraged our legislators to pass statutes that allow us to add a road and bridge user fee to all our licensed vehicles registered in our counties to develop transportation reinvestment zones to build toll roads to get projects done and do other collaborative efforts to make sure that we can build projects out to their fruition.
Cameron County and the Rio Grande Valley is the largest metropolitan area in the United States without interstate connectivity. A completed interstate will compliment what we have done here in the Valley, connecting us from international sea ports to land ports of entry to help develop projects such as SpaceX and LNG projects.
We look forward to being considered for $600 million to fully fund what would connect us to the interstate highway in the rest of the state of Texas on U.S. 77. Many times our projects don’t compete because the grant funding is measured on the same metrics as urban projects are. It is hard to compete with areas that have had an interstate for the last 40 or 50 years. And when you use the same metrics to issue that grant we don’t do well. Many of these areas go through rural Texas. We need to revise that criteria. The 90 percent match that used to exist to build interstates from the federal government is no longer available.
Broadband connectivity, as has already been noted, is critically important. Thirty percent of the households in our county do not have access to internet. Twenty percent have minimal access that do not meet the minimum standards. We have done some projects that have made huge differences in people’s lives. Last night I had a conversation with Robert Rodriguez in Lozano, Texas, a small rural colonia with 250 homes in it and he says to me, Heidi and Zoe can connect to their teachers, can connect to their schools, can connect to a world outside of local TV antenna. When they went virtual they could not connect because cell phone connectivity is sparse is there also.
I want to tell you, before I lose all my time, that I have included in the spirit of bipartisanism a package that includes a picture and a DVD of a project that was developed through bipartisan efforts over the course of the last 20 years. The largest wetland restoration project in the United States has come to fruition and exists in the Valley. There is a documentary in the package that you will get before you leave and there is also a picture by an artist that has since passed who wanted us to use her pictures with people to help them see the eyes of who we really are in South Texas through what she saw in the beauty that we had.
I thank you for your time. I wish you luck in the endeavors that you have before you. But most importantly, know that we ready to put skin in the game to make things happen in this region. Thank you.
Editor’s Note: The above remarks were made by Cameron County Commissioner David A. Garza at a field hearing of the U.S. House Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth. The hearing was held June 17, 2022, at the offices of the Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council.
Editor’s Note: The Rio Grande Guardian International News Service will have more coverage from the select committee’s field hearing in future editions.
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