Houston's ever-more-frequent floods (one is happening now) show how damaging the saboteur's cancellation of Obama's flood-risk rule will be over time.

A time-limit on analysis of projects will certainly assist projects that submit bogus environmental impact studies. When those in harm's way criticize the flaws in a bogus study, the developers will use the deadline to pressure spineless or semi-corrupt officials to overlook the flaws "so that the project won't be canceled by the time-out."

A firmly honest official or judge won't cede to that pressure, but Republicans won't appoint honest officials and judges.

Heavy rains are more devastating for Houston than they would have to be, because the old infrastructure, and lots of houses, were built in places with too high flood risk.

Meanwhile, the number of heavy rainstorms keeps increasing, just as global heating is expected to do. So it will get worse and worse.