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WASHINGTON — Brooke Rollins, President Donald Trump’s pick for Agriculture Secretary, stood behind the president’s proposals for mass deportations and tariffs even as she acknowledged they could make life harder for farmers.

But she told senators at her nomination hearing Thursday that she will find ways to cushion the blows.

Trump believes tariffs are “a very important tool in his toolkit to continue to bring America back to the forefront of the world, and to ensure that we have a thriving economy,” Rollins said. “But just as he did and we did in the first administration, he also understands the potential devastating impact to our farmers and our ranchers. So I fully understand and we are prepared to do something similar — to ensure that we can close those holes moving forward under any sort of tariff execution.”

Trump has threatened to levy 25% tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada. Mexico is Texas’ biggest trading partner and one of the state’s biggest agricultural export markets, along with Canada.

Texas farmers bore the consequences of Trump’s tariffs against China in 2018, which were met with retaliatory tariffs by Beijing on cotton, corn and sorghum, some of Texas’ biggest exports. The Trump White House allocated aid at the time for the agriculture sector to weather some of the losses resulting from the tariffs.

Democrats on the committee noted that several farmers said during the last Trump administration that they would prefer “trade, not aid” and to open up overseas markets. Rollins said she would work with the U.S. Trade Representative and others in the administration to make sure farmers are protected amid tariffs.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, also pointed out that 40% of agriculture workers in the country are undocumented. Rollins didn’t dispute the industry’s reliance on undocumented labor but defended Trump’s plans for mass deportations.

“Listen, the president’s vision of a secure border and a mass deportation at a scale that matters is something I support,” Rollins said. “That is my commitment to help deploy President Trump’s agenda in an effective way.”

Numerous Democrats asked how farms could operate with so much of the labor force deported. Rollins repeatedly said she would work with Trump’s Department of Labor to “make sure none of these farms or dairy producers are put out of business.” She said reforming the H-2A temporary agricultural worker visa could fill the labor gap. She pointed out that Trump has been “very clear that this first round will be aimed at, as you mentioned, those who have committed crimes.”

Rollins, a native of Glen Rose, is one of Trump’s less controversial nominations. The Agriculture Committee, which is largely bipartisan, will vote at a future meeting on advancing her nomination to the full Senate, who will vote on her confirmation.

Rollins currently leads the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank closely linked to Trump. She previously served as CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, one the most prominent conservative think tanks in Texas. The group has had an outsized influence on the national stage with several of its alumni gaining prominence in national conservative circles. Rollins said she modeled the America First Policy Institute off of TPPF.

“At TPPF, we fundamentally redefined the mission of a think tank from just having ideas or writing about them in white papers to actually effectually changing policy for the people of our state,” Rollins said. “We engaged strongly during those 15 years with Texas rural and small town communities, giving them a voice in government that was too often denied.”

Rollins vowed to dedicate the first 100 days as secretary to pushing out disaster aid to farmers reeling from recent natural disasters, including droughts, hurricanes and heatwaves. Congress passed a disaster relief package in December that included over $3 billion expected to go to Texas’ agriculture sector. She portrayed a farming environment beleaguered by high input costs and market uncertainty.

“It will be a fast and furious effort to make sure we move that economic aid out,” Rollins said.

She also agreed with Democrats on the committee that the trend of farms being bought up by multinational corporations at the expense of smaller farms should be reversed.

“We have to find a better way, and it can’t come always through government subsidies. We’ve got to expand the market,” Rollins said.

Rollins vowed to support food assistance and nutrition programs that make up the lion’s share of federal spending on agriculture such as SNAP. She said she was “fully aware and have a heart for this work,” but added it is imperative to ensure those taxpayer dollars go to intended recipients and are spent efficiently.

Democrats and Republicans in Congress have been divided on implementing more stringent work requirements for SNAP. Food assistance programs like SNAP make up an overwhelming majority of spending under the Farm Bill, a mammoth legislative package normally passed every five years. Congress has punted for over a year on renewing the Farm Bill, with work and nutrition requirements for SNAP remaining a fissure.

Almost all SNAP participants are already required to work unless they have extraordinary circumstances such as childcare and eldercare. Rollins called work requirements “important” and said she would commit to working with Democrats to make sure they are implemented fairly.

The Agriculture Department manages a wide-reaching portfolio. In addition to the nation’s farming, the department also oversees rural development in areas including health care and housing.

Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat from Minnesota, feared that USDA’s rural development program, a little understood branch of the agency that is involved in rural issues ranging from housing to health care, could be gutted as part of Trump’s government efficiency push. Government efficiency is a top priority of the Trump White House, with the newly minted Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk set on cutting billions of dollars in federal spending.

Rollins said she appreciated that rural development went beyond agriculture and that “revivifying, restoring and bringing back rural America” was one of the programs she was most excited about, including supporting housing and education for rural Americans.

Under her leadership, TPPF opposed biofuels, which are made from agriculture products and are a major priority for agriculture interests that crosses party lines. Asked by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the top Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, about the organization’s post opposition, Rollins acknowledged that the group has historically supported the state’s oil and gas industry, which at times competes with biofuel production. But she said she was open to supporting the biofuels industry, as is Trump.

Klobuchar asked about Rollins’ family’s financial interests in the oil and gas industry, which Rollins had to disclose as part of her nomination. Rollins insisted that “anyone that has ever worked with me will tell you, even to the detriment of organizations I have run, detriment financially to my potential family, that I have never, not ever made a decision based on financial interests, ever.”

Neither of Texas’ two senators serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee. But both Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz introduced Rollins at Thursday’s hearing, calling her a “no-brainer.” Both have known Rollins for decades going back to her time in the Texas governor’s office and leading the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

“She’s proven herself to be a leader, she’s proven herself to be an innovative policy thinker, and she’s proven herself able to bring people together to accomplish major objectives,” Cruz said.

“Everybody who knows Brooke Rollins loves Brooke Rollins, and you will, too,” said Cornyn.

During the first Trump administration, Rollins worked in the White House as director of the Domestic Policy Council and as assistant to the president for strategic initiatives. In that role, she worked with both Democrats and Republicans in Congress to pass the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill that was signed into law in 2018 — an experience that she highlighted to show that she was eager to work with members of both parties at USDA.

Rollins previously served as policy director to former Gov. Rick Perry, where her portfolio included agriculture policy. Several Republican governors endorsed Rollins’ nomination including Gov. Greg Abbott, in a letter earlier this month.

“Simply put, there are few better qualified than Secretary-designate Brooke Leslie Rollins to understand and engage state concerns, state priorities, and state action,” the governors wrote.

Texas is a leading agricultural state, with over 230,662 farms covering 125.5 million acres. The majority of Texas agriculture is in meat, with over half of the industry’s market value — roughly $15 billion worth — being in beef production, according to the Texas Department of Agriculture.

Rollins’ mother is state Rep. Helen Kerwin, who represents state House district 58 based in Cleburne and Rollins jokingly referred to as the “oldest freshman legislator in Texas history.” Kerwin was in the audience during Thursday’s hearing and took advantage of her trip to Washington to talk with senators about PFAS, chemicals often used in water resistant materials that have been linked to cancer.

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.

On the South Texas coast, the city of Corpus Christi has initiated an emergency effort to boost its water supply as local reservoirs experience a yearslong decline and water demand from big industrial projects continues to grow.

The Corpus Christi City Council approved a measure last week to begin leasing land for wells that will pump millions of gallons per day into the Nueces River, the region’s main water supply. It followed an emergency authorization memo for the project issued by the city manager on Dec. 31.

Two weeks earlier, Corpus Christi, which supplies water to 600,000 people in seven counties, enacted its strictest water use restrictions in at least 30 years, when combined levels in its two reservoirs on the Nueces River fell below 20% full after years of sparse rainfall.

“This is my fourth drought in my 43-year engineering career,” said John Michael, a senior vice president with engineering contractor Hanson Professional Services and manager for Corpus Christi’s Nueces River groundwater project, which aims to produce 20 million gallons per day by autumn. “They’re not easy. They’re high anxiety. They’re stressful.”

Drought has always been a part of life in South Texas. But in recent years, Corpus Christi has faced combined pressures of a prolonged dry spell and record-breaking heat during a period of rapid growth in its industrial sector.

City leaders initially hoped to meet the water demands of new industrial facilities with a large seawater desalination plant, which they planned to build by 2023. But the project became mired in delays and still remains years away from completion.

Meanwhile, the new industrial facilities have begun to draw water. An enormous plastics plant owned by ExxonMobil and Saudi Basic Industries Corp. uses millions of gallons per day. A lithium refinery owned by Tesla is slowly starting operations and plans to drastically increase its water consumption in coming years, according to water authority records. Another company has secured rights to millions of gallons per day of Nueces River water to produce hydrogen for export, but hasn’t yet broken ground.

Several other hydrogen plants, a carbon capture facility and a new refinery are also in development nearby. Other companies are interested in building here, too.

“There are a lot of projects that have looked at locating in South Texas, but it will be difficult until this drought is over or we have added some additional supply,” Michael said. “It’s going to be difficult to take on any big new industrial projects, other than the ones that have already started.”

Corpus Christi now hopes to build its first desalination plant by mid-2028. If the city’s reservoirs continue their rate of decline from recent years, that could be too late.

The Nueces River groundwater initiative was one of several short-term water supply projects described in an update issued by the city in January. As the two Nueces River reservoirs dwindle, crews are also hurriedly expanding a pipeline and pump stations to Corpus Christi’s third reservoir, Lake Texana, which remains 75% full but is 100 miles away. The update also said a private desalination plant built by a local plastics manufacturer, CC Polymers, will come online in 2025, and could be incorporated into the public water supply.

“It’s kind of an all-hands-on-deck thing right now,” said Perry Fowler, executive director of the Texas Water Infrastructure Network, a lobbying group based in Austin. “The water supply situation is rather serious.”

Corpus Christi isn’t alone. Across parts of south, west and central Texas, decades of rapid development and recurring drought have stretched water supplies to their limits. Official projections show some places running dry within 10 or 20 years, with few new sources of water to turn to.

That’s a major deterrent to big businesses, from microchip makers to chemical plants, that would otherwise invest in Texas.

This year, Fowler said, water planning is expected to take center stage as the Texas Legislature meets for its biennial session, with legislation in development that could make billions of dollars of state financing available to develop new sources across the state.

“Water is being viewed appropriately as an economic development issue, so I think it’s got really broad support,” Fowler said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the discussion elevated to this level.”

Real solutions, he said, will be developed over decades. In the immediate term, there isn’t much state lawmakers can do.

In Corpus Christi, leaders watched this situation creep up slowly. More than a year ago, the city stopped releasing reservoir water meant to support wetland ecosystems where the Nueces River meets the Gulf. But levels kept falling, from 44% full in 2023 to 31% a year ago and 19% today.

In December, the city intensified restrictions for local residents, prohibiting any outdoor water use for landscaping or car washing.

Water use restrictions, however, don’t apply to the region’s sprawling refineries and chemical plants, thanks to a purchasable exemption for industrial users passed by the City Council in 2018.

Proceeds from that exemption fee — 25 cents per 1,000 gallons consumed — were meant to fund development of the seawater desalination plant that was supposed to have been ready by 2023 to meet the demands of rapid growth in the region’s industrial sector.

When city staff members first presented their desalination plan to the city council in 2019, they displayed a graph showing large increases in water demand in 2022 and 2023, citing the Exxon-SABIC plastics plant, a new steel mill and other projects.

“A new water supply designed to meet new water demand should be in place before the new demand is consuming water,” the presentation said. “Based on supply and demand projections, the first Seawater Desalination Plant needs to be operational (supplying water) in early 2023.”

But the project stalled, mired by infighting with the Port of Corpus Christi Authority, questions over environmental impacts to Corpus Christi Bay and challenges from activists who saw water supply as a means to push back against industrial expansion in their area.

Meanwhile, in 2022, an exceptionally severe drought year, the new projects began to draw water, gradually ramping up operations. In 2023, Texas logged its hottest year on record statewide, and 2024 became the hottest on record for the South Texas region. During each of those years, levels in the Nueces River reservoirs declined.

The prospect of scarcity hasn’t deterred big companies from locating thirsty projects in the area, a long-established refinery hub with a busy commercial port.

“The majority of what are slated for our communities are large-volume water users,” said Elida Castillo, mayor pro-tem for the small city of Taft, which gets its water from Corpus Christi. “At the end of the day, they require tons of water that we do not have, and it’s all in the name of economic development.”

In nearby Robstown, Tesla is completing construction on the nation’s first large-scale lithium refinery. The facility plans to use a million gallons of water per day by October 2025 but hopes to eventually use eight million gallons per day, according to February 2024 meeting minutes from the South Texas Water Authority, a provider that buys its water from Corpus Christi.

An internal bulletin from Corpus Christi Water in April 2024 said the facility could use up to 10 million gallons per day.

Avina Clean Hydrogen, a New Jersey-based company founded in 2020, has secured rights to 5.5 million gallons per day of Nueces River water to produce hydrogen ammonia for export.

“I don’t know how they’re going to give them all those millions of gallons of water per day if we don’t have any water here,” said Myra Alaniz, a retired federal government worker who lives near the Avina site and is a member of the Tejano civic organization Chispa Texas.

Another hydrogen company has leased 2,400 acres in the nearby town of Agua Dulce, according to a December 2024 report from the Robstown Area Development Commission.

The pipeline giant Enbridge is also building a hydrogen plant in neighboring San Patricio County, which gets its water from Corpus Christi, and DRL Refineries is building an oil refinery to produce gasoline. To the south, in Kleberg County, a startup called 1PointFive plans a large facility it says will capture 30 million tons of greenhouse gases every year from the air, mix them with water and inject them underground to mitigate the effects of climate change.

By 2030, this stretch of coast will face a water shortfall of nearly 28 million gallons per day if alternate supplies are not developed, according to Texas’ latest statewide water plan, growing to 44 million gallons per day by 2070. In that time, temperatures are expected to continue rising, according to the Office of the Texas State Climatologist at Texas A&M University, driven by the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. (Texas is the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world.)

According to the state’s projections, Corpus Christi should be able to handle the demand if it succeeds in completing a 30 million gallon per day seawater desalination plant by 2028, as it currently projects. But it will be close, and it won’t be enough to meet future needs.

Now, the Nueces River Authority, a small public agency, is leading an effort to assemble interested parties behind plans for a gargantuan desalination facility that could meet regional water needs for a generation to come.

John Byrum, executive director of the Nueces River Authority, wrote in a September 2024 letter to the Port of Corpus Christi Authority, obtained via records request: “Current water supplies are an issue for industries wanting to locate to the Coastal Bend as well as the Nueces Basin. If the Nueces region is to realize the benefits of the high paying jobs provided by industries currently inquiring and wanting to move to the area, water sources in addition to the City of Corpus Christi’s Seawater Desalination Plant must be developed.”

Byrum proposes a desalination facility located on an island owned by the port that would initially produce 100 million gallons per day of freshwater, then scale up to 450 million gallons per day over subsequent decades — more than is currently produced from any desalination plant on earth. It would include a system of pipelines and pump stations moving vast volumes of water hundreds of miles uphill to meet the needs of cities in Central Texas.

The enormous undertaking would cost untold billions of dollars and represent one of the world’s largest water infrastructure projects, though smaller than efforts currently underway in China.

“It is a huge project, but keep in mind we’re going to phase this in,” Byrum said in an interview. “We’re looking forward to working with the Legislature this session on badly needed water supply.”

Byrum is currently gathering resolutions of interest from local towns and entities, which he hopes to use to win support from state lawmakers when they gather in Austin for this year’s legislative session.

For now, just upstream from Corpus Christi, crews work hastily on the emergency groundwater project. Several old wells along the Nueces River banks were used for this purpose during droughts of the 1980s and ’90s, but have long been abandoned.

“Investigative work is ongoing,” said a spokesperson for the Corpus Christi Water Department in a written response to questions. “This is complex work that requires time.”

The city hopes to lease the land, test and rehabilitate the wells and then build new pump stations to move groundwater into the river and downstream to users as soon as possible.

Local drought conditions are currently at stage three, “urgent.” If reservoir levels continue to decline through the summer, the city’s next step is the fourth and final stage, “emergency.” At that point, industrial users will have to steeply curtail water consumption, causing major economic disruption.

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the original article, click here.

WASHINGTON — Congress approved a bill Wednesday to detain undocumented immigrants who have been accused of committing even minor crimes, with two Texas Democrats voting for the bill.

The Laken Riley Act passed the U.S. House on Wednesday afternoon on a 263-156 vote, with 46 Democrats joining all voting Republicans supporting the bill. U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar of Laredo and Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen were among the Democrats who voted for the bill.

Supporters worked to make sure that the bill targeting undocumented immigrants would be the first legislation of President Donald Trump’s second term. He has campaigned on mass deportations and hardening the border, and many of his Republican allies in Congress are eager to provide the legislative muscle in support. More than 11 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States, with 1.6 million living in Texas. The bill now heads to Trump’s desk to be signed into law. The U.S. Senate advanced the bill on Monday with 12 Democratic senators joining all Republicans in voting for the bill.

The bill is named after Laken Riley, a Georgia nursing student who was killed by an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela. It would require the Department of Homeland Security to detain undocumented immigrants arrested for or charged with burglary, theft, larceny, shoplifting or assaulting a police officer. It also allows state governments to sue the federal government if they feel Washington is failing to enforce border laws.

The bill does not include funding to increase detention capacity. Funding for immigration enforcement is one of Republicans’ top priorities as it works out its spending plans for the year.

The bill is separate from similar legislation that passed the House last week that would require deportation for migrants convicted of sex crimes or domestic violence. Cuellar, Gonzalez and U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Farmers Branch, were among the 61 Democrats who joined Republicans in voting for that bill. It is now in the Senate.

Both Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz have advocated for stricter penalties for criminal activity by undocumented immigrants. Cornyn included an amendment to the act that would make assaulting a law enforcement officer one of the punishable crimes.

Last year, Cruz introduced the Justice of Jocelyn Act, which was named after Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12-year-old Houstonian who was murdered last June. Two undocumented immigrants from Venezuela were charged with her murder.

The Justice for Jocelyn Act would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to detain all migrants unless there is no detention space available and mandate tracking devices and curfews for migrants who are not in detention. The bill would also mandate deportation for migrants who fail to comply with their release order.

Many of the Democrats who voted for the Laken Riley Act represent competitive districts where Republicans have accused Democrats of being too light on the border. Gonzalez’s district was Republicans’ biggest target in Texas this year, and Cuellar is likely to be targeted in next year’s elections. Both represent districts Trump won that have swung heavily to the right in recent years.

Cuellar and Gonzalez have both broken with their party on votes related to the border and other issues Republicans campaigned on, such as transgender rights. Cuellar founded a Democrats for Border Security task force last year.

But other Democrats say the bill amounts to fear mongering. A National Institute of Justice study found that undocumented immigrants tend to commit crimes at a lower rate than U.S.-born citizens. The Laken Riley Act does not make exceptions for recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — a program that protects immigrants who entered the country illegally as children from deportation.

“It makes it so that immigrants, including dreamers, who are supposed to be protected from deportation, if they were accused of a crime like shoplifting, even if they didn’t do it, that they and their families’ lives could be ruined by deportation.” said U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, D-Austin. “Laken Riley’s killer was tried and convicted and sentenced to life in prison, and he should be convicted and held accountable for this horrific killing. But the Laken Riley Act has nothing to do with her.”