Our New U.S. Representative Visits LG

U.S. Congressman Michael Cloud, Republican from Victoria, visited La Grange last Wednesday, April 8. He met with Fayette County leaders at the courthouse and then spoke to about two dozen local folks at a public meet-and-greet event at Sealand Restaurant that evening.

Cloud was first elected to Congress in 2018. He represents Texas’s 27th Congressional District. The recent redistricting placed Fayette County into Cloud’s district. He serves on the House Appropriations Committee and the Oversight Committee. The Appropriations Committee handles matters related to federal spending. Accordingly, it is one of, if not the most, important committees in Congress.

He made an interesting comment about spending in relation to U.S. foreign policy.

“We’ve actually brought a lot of reforms to how the Appropriations Committee process works,” Cloud told the audience at Sealand. “We still have a long way to go. When I got on the committee, we were doing the whole thing with the State Department where we fund all sides to every battle in a sense. Now, you can have an argument of whether we’re still spending too much overseas or not, but at least we’re limiting it to our allies at this point.”

Cloud said energy and water rank atop the list of concerns he hears the most from constituents.

“A month ago, we had the president down,” Cloud said. “He’s made a commitment to make a substantial federal investment in helping Texas out with some of our water issues.”

One of those is a proposed desalination plant along the Texas Gulf Coast that would convert saltwater into fresh water. Corpus Christi, with its massive port and petrochemical industry, is currently experiencing a critical water shortage.

“Right now, the way the federal government works is all the federal dollars related to de-sal go to Berkeley (University) and then get distributed from there. How many want to guess how much we get in Texas out of that paradigm? We get zero, approximately zero. So we began to work on the concept of creating a Gulf of America De-Sal Center of Excellence. We’ve already gotten that passed through the legislation.”

Cloud described the De-Sal Center as a “bucket of federal dollars” that could be used to fund desalination projects along the Gulf Coast. He said the Center would not only focus on desalination projects, but also other water technologies.

“So the hope is when we’re looking 30 years from now, we won’t be known as the region that’s thirsty for water, but we’ll be known as the region you go to to find out the best ways to use water,” he said. “And whether that’s de-sal technologies, smart ag, with all the different technologies you can bring to it. And by creating a center of excellence, it allows more federal streams of funding.”

In regard to data centers and their water usage - a hot topic in Fayette County - Cloud said the newest ones are using “closed-loop” water cooling technologies that won’t require massive amounts of water.

Cloud spent time introducing some of his staff to the audience. He encouraged everyone to sign up for his online newsletter at cloud. house.gov. He also said his team plans to open a field office in Bastrop to serve constituents in the new parts of his district.