WASHINGTON – Environmental policy advocates gathered Monday near the White House, urging the Trump administration and Congress to support key disaster and weather agencies in the wake of catastrophic Texas floods.
The event featured 27 camp trunks topped with roses, representing the campers and counselors lost at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp in the Hill Country.
A few dozen people turned out for Monday’s event, nearly half of them from Texas, as they sang songs and called for action to fight climate change and hold the oil and gas industry accountable.
Eileen McGinnis said she made the trip from Austin in an effort to connect one of the worst disasters in Texas history to a broader story of climate change affecting children around the world.
Wildfires, flooding and severe storms are affecting summer’s status as a time of unbridled joy, McGinnis said.
“Kids around the world are bearing the brunt of climate change’s impacts and we are failing to protect them,” McGinnis said.
McGinnis founded The Parents’ Climate Community, a nonprofit organization that aims to engage Austin families in fighting climate change.
Speakers demanded fossil fuel companies pay up for their role in driving climate change.
Some scientists say climate change is making disasters like the recent flash flooding more common.
Those at Monday’s event called for supporting the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service.
Nyeka Arnold, founder of Austin nonprofit The Healing Project, spoke about the importance of funding flood prevention measures and climate resilience in historically marginalized neighborhoods.
“When humans don’t prepare or respond to disasters, we make them worse,” Arnold said. “We need more than thoughts and prayers. We need accountability. That’s why we’re here.”
Organizers highlighted staffing reductions implemented by the Trump administration, along with budget cuts that were part of the Big Beautiful Bill approved by Congress and signed into law around the time of the flooding.
They criticized U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for the Commerce Committee section of the bill he led the way in crafting.
That portion included provisions rescinding unspent money from the Biden administration’s signature Inflation Reduction Act.
Most of the IRA money had already been spent.
Among the areas cut was a fund intended to speed advances in “research, observation systems, modeling, forecasting, assessments, and dissemination of information to the public as it pertains to ocean and atmospheric processes related to weather, coasts, oceans, and climate.”
It’s not clear exactly how much of the original $150 million in that specific fund had yet to be spent. Cruz’s office has said none of the funding involved was for existing operations or forecasting activity.
Democrats have called for investigations into the federal flooding response to have accountability and save lives in future extreme weather emergencies.
President Donald Trump defended the federal response during his visit to Kerr County in the aftermath of the flooding, describing the disaster as unprecedented in scale.