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A group of Congressional Republicans have called on Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to lift the pause on the Texas Dept. of Transportation's I-45 expansion project in Houston.
Seven GOP members of Congress from the Houston area, led by Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Richmond), wrote Buttigieg requesting an end to a federal review of the North Houston Highway Improvement Project.
“While we support and appreciate local communities engaging in government and the decisions that impact them, it is disingenuous to cloak radical environmentalism with the alleged local considerations," the letter from the congressmen said.
The letter also said that the stoppage of the project "will place the people you purport to be concerned about at a severe economic disadvantage and endanger their safety.”
Others disagreed and said while they wanted I-45 to be rebuilt, it should not match the plan created by Texas transportation leaders.
“We do need and our community deserves an I-45 project,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo told the Houston Chronicle in June. “We also need a project that respects the wishes of the community.”
The legislators asserted that opposition to the project was stoked by national environmentalist groups. The NHHIP has been paused since June. The Texas Transportation Commission in August voted for the project to move forward.
Meanwhile, opponents of the plan assert that it disproportionately benefits suburban residents due to the widening of the highway and does not benefit the 1,000 homes and 300 businesses along the I-45 highway, according to a report from the Houston Chronicle. Proponents of the plan, which would cost $9 billion, say it promotes connectivity. The plan would add two additional lanes to the highway in both directions.
Even at the time of its first approval by state officials in September, the plan was described as "controversial" by the Houston Daily. Even under the plan, the highway would continue to be a part of Texas's United Transportation Project.