Denial of climate change spells trouble for FEMA maps

Re: Sept. 7 editorial, “With stronger storms on horizon, Texas needs a robust FEMA”

The Texas Legislature passed a requirement in its special session that children’s cabins at camps are not to be built within the floodplain.

But how are floodplains determined? By a group within Federal Emergency Management Agency that either hires hydrologist consultants to update floodplain maps or develops them themselves.

The Trump administration, however, has severely cut back staffing there. The cuts were done at a time when frequent updates are needed more than ever, given the impact of land development and climate change.

So the Legislature, which denies climate change, is relying on floodplain maps that will not be incorporating the impacts of climate change appropriately because of a federal administration that also denies climate change.

Instead, the same administration is weakening or eliminating environmental protections, which will only accelerate climate change.

We will all suffer the consequences.

Kathleen Bergeron, Salisbury, N.C.

As a frequent critic of our Texas legislators, I applaud their strong support of legislation to actively address the myriad problems that contributed to the horrific Hill Country flooding deaths.

To me, this fast action by the Legislature was driven in part because of the organized, well-connected parents of the young girls and counselors who died at Camp Mystic.

It’s worth noting the parents have friends in high places, including Karl Rove, former deputy chief of staff and senior advisor to President George W. Bush, and his lobbyist wife. The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece about how he and his wife personally assisted the parents in their legislative efforts.

I have no complaint about calling upon your contacts to assist in important matters. Although Gov. Greg Abbott did not initially include flooding mitigation efforts in his special session agenda, he eventually got on board and supported the legislation.

As a longtime Texan, I deeply wish we could see such swift, bipartisan action to confront easy access to guns combined with a lack of mental health care statewide.

I only seem to hear many government leaders simply express thoughts and prayers after massacres at schools, churches and retail stores.

Is it too much to hope we could see a change of heart and direction from our Texan legislators?

Austin residents are treating the city logo like it’s the Alamo of graphic design — untouchable, sacred.

Have y’all looked at our current one? It has a random lamp, a Christian cross and a dusty 1930s vibe. It looks less like a city seal and more like something stamped on a Works Progress Administration plaque.

Folks are mad the new logo feels ’90s? It’s still an upgrade. At least we’ve moved from “Prohibition chic” to “AOL dial-up.”

The bigger issue isn’t the font, it’s our obsession with clip-art while real problems like housing, transit and affordability sit outside the door. Austin’s identity doesn’t live in a logo. It lives in people, neighborhoods, music, food and creativity.

If we don’t put the same energy into affordability, supporting artists and protecting community spaces, we’ll end up with the coolest logo stamped on a city that no longer feels like home.

Austin deserves a logo with soul — but it’ll mean nothing if the city itself loses it.

Kazique Jelani Prince, Austin

Gerrymandering has become the game of the moment, with Republicans in Texas and Democrats in California pushing maps to tilt elections their way.

It is fundamentally undemocratic. But there is another way forward for Texas — one true to its outsized identity: Split the state in two.

The bifurcation would be simple.

Draw a line along the 37th parallel, west to east from El Paso to Austin, then south to Matagorda Bay.

South Texas — call it Blue Texas — it would take in El Paso, San Angelo, Austin and San Antonio. Cowboy Texas would hold Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and Amarillo.

Unlike intractable conflicts that split nations, this division would be relatively uncomplicated. The U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to admit new states with legislative consent, and there is precedent: Vermont split from New York, West Virginia from Virginia, the Dakota Territory into North and South.

The solution is to split the Lone Star State in two.

Texans who see their state as a rogue MAGA stronghold, and those who dream of a different path, could finally govern in line with their constituents.

Charles Josef Duch, Alexandria, Va.

Re: Aug. 31 letter, “Democrats still failing”

I am flabbergasted that the letter writer claims Democrats made it harder for families to afford homes, health care and groceries under President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden.

Obamacare made health care affordable for millions of Americans, and would have been even better had Republicans in Congress not slashed major parts of it.

Obama and Biden both left office with a growing economy, and Biden managed to get us through the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic without the U.S. entering a recession, something our peer countries around the world did not manage to do.

Historically speaking, Democratic presidents have left office with strong economies which Republican presidents then diminished.

The footage President Donald Trump displayed of a U.S. strike on a suspected drug boat should alarm every American who cares about the Constitution.

The boat didn’t look like it carried anything but people, yet we treated it as a battlefield target and destroyed it from the air. That is not law enforcement. That is execution without trial.

In America, drug trafficking is a serious crime, but it is not an act of war. For decades, our efforts against gangs and narcotics may have been imperfect, but at least they were lawful.

Now we face something far more dangerous, the conflation of crime with war. If presidents can unilaterally label criminals as “terrorists” and order their deaths without oversight, then due process and congressional authority vanish in the smoke of a missile strike.

Congress holds both the purse strings and the sole power to declare war. Congress should demand to see the intelligence that justified this action.

When we abandon the rule of law, we step onto a ski slope with a triple-black-diamond rating. The descent is fast, reckless and perilous for us all.

The Constitution is not an inconvenience. It is the safeguard of liberty and human dignity. To ignore it in the name of expedience is not strength, it is lawlessness.

Americans must say no before this dangerous precedent hardens into practice.

Every day seems to bring a new crisis from the White House — another reckless policy, another chaotic announcement. None of it is random. It’s part of a destructive pattern we can no longer ignore.

Our country is in crisis.

President Donald Trump’s agenda and actions create chaos, not solutions. He now claims he’ll fight crime by sending the military into American cities— Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Chicago and now New Orleans. But the military won’t solve crime. It intimidates communities.

Meanwhile, Trump’s policies gut the very programs that keep crime down: housing, education, disease prevention and a stable economy. When families can’t afford food or basic goods, desperation grows, and with it, crime.

This is the playbook of a despotic ruler: create chaos, then march in with troops and declare yourself the savior. If Congress doesn’t find its backbone, we face grave danger in the years ahead.

The burden now falls to us.

Citizens must keep speaking out, pressing our representatives, and showing up at rallies and town halls. Democracy only survives if we stand up for it.