The Economic Outlook Forum featured prominent community leaders, such as U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, who discussed economic issues facing the Greater Houston area.[/caption]

The oil glut’s effect on the Greater Houston area economy is being leveraged by other industries, such as health care and port.

An economic forum held April 1, hosted by Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce at Southwestern Energy, included speakers such as U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, and Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman. The forum speakers discussed topics from health care’s economic effect to the area to the forecast for oil.

Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle kicked off the forum with optimism,  discussing ongoing area road projects and growth in the area.

“Harris County has more people living in it than the state of Louisiana,” Cagle said.

In the first eight months of 2015, the county approved 269 new neighborhoods and 341 shopping centers in Precinct 4, Cagle said.

He attributed the success of road projects, including the Grand Parkway and Tomball Tollway, to cooperation between private and public sectors.

“It’s a wonderful concept—private industry working with government to best serve the public,” he said.

Economic forces and issues

Panelists spoke about the current economic climate and issues surrounding the oil glut. The panel included Scott Davis, regional director of Metrostudy; Tim Schauer, co-leader of Cornerstone Government Affairs; and Adam Perdue, economist at the Institute of Regional Forecasting.

Davis said that while energy remains a regional strength, over 52 percent of Houston’s growth in the past five years was not energy-related.

“Energy is vital to our economy,” he said. “It’s one of our largest sectors, but the growth we have experienced in the last five years has not been built on a tidal wave of [oil] shale.”

Davis said Houston lost 17,000 jobs in the energy sector last year.

“That’s roughly one out of every six people employed in upstream energies in the Houston market, and we still added 15,000 jobs,” he said.

Upstream energies include drilling exploratory wells.

Davis said the Houston metro area will continue to see job growth in health care, education, leisure, hospitality and housing.

“Northwest Houston is in a good position to weather any kind of storm,” he said.

Schauer said the top job to bring people out of poverty is nursing, but a shortage of nurses presents its own challenges in today’s economy.

“If we don’t continue to invest and spend in education, the shortage of nurses will continue to grow,” he said. “In this market alone, we’re really lacking primary care doctors.”

Perdue said he is pessimistic about oil prices going forward but optimistic about the overall Houston economy.

“Unless something outside of oil and gas market changes, we have at least two years until we can see a recovery in oil prices and send our rigs back into the field,” Perdue said.

Rail and port

Tim Keith, CEO of Texas Central Partners and retired captain of the U.S. Coast Guard Bill Diehl, who is also president of the Greater Houston Port Bureau, spoke about the high-speed rail slated to connect Houston and Dallas in the next decade and the Port of Houston, respectively.

Texas Central received approval in August from the Federal Railroad Administration to use the utility corridor along Hwy. 290 as the route for the bullet train, Keith said.

“We have at least two years until we can see a recovery in oil prices and send our rigs back into the field.”

-Adam Perdue, economist at the Institute of Regional Forecasting, C.T. Bauer College of Business University of Houston

Trains are expected to travel 200 miles per hour and will serve three stations—Dallas, Brazos Valley and Houston, Keith said.

“This is the first time in the world that a private-sponsored high-speed rail system of this scale has advanced toward construction,” Keith said.

Diehl said the future of commerce lies in globalization. Houston’s port is the top in the country, he said, beating out even the Panama Canal.

“The industry as a whole produces $400 million of business a day,” he said. “It is what is driving this area. It will drive Texas.”

Law enforcement

Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman, Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman and James Morrison with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Houston Cyber Task Force discussed safety and security in Houston.

“We run a small city,” Hickman said of the Harris County Jail. “It has 9,000 people in it inside the jail. And like small cities, bad things happen.”

He said 350 inmates arrive at the Harris County Jail daily, and more than 120,000 are processed annually.

Hickman also addressed the need for additional law enforcement.

“Harris County has less than half of what the city of Houston has in uniform presence on the street, responding to calls for service,” Hickman said.

Herman said his office lately sees more violence during arrests.

“It used to be no one resisted arrest or ran from the police,” he said. “My guys get into fights almost every week. It’s just a sign of the times.”

Herman said Precinct 4 has the largest constable agency in the country, covering over 500 square miles.

Morrison said there are 300 FBI agents in the Houston area, but that it is not enough.

“We are always looking for enhancement,” he said.

One way the FBI works to prevent attacks is by working with law enforcement partners, he said.

“We’re well into planning for the Super Bowl,” he said of the 2017 game.

Morrison also discussed cybercrime, such as spam and computer viruses. He said corporations and individuals are equally at risk for malicious attacks, but that everyone can secure their information.

“If you’re that person who clicks on every link, stop.” he said.

Washington perspective

U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Houston, and Brady offered their comments on the current the economy.

Poe listed trade and human trafficking among his chief concerns.

New legislation gives law enforcement the power to better prevent human trafficking by allowing police to focus on the consumers of that industry, he said.

Poe also expressed optimism about an energy-related economic boom.

He said he sees trade in light crude oil and natural gas as future sources for an economic boom in Texas.

“We have a lot of natural gas,” he said. “We produce the most of any state in the U.S. We want to use all we can and sell the rest.”

Brady said economic recovery in the region is slow, but he agreed that energy will be key to growth in Texas.

“This recovery is the worst in 50 years,” Brady said.

Small businesses also play a role in the region’s economic growth, he said, citing the need for tax reform.

“Let’s create a tax code for growth,” Brady said. “We need a code that is fair and simple.”

Brady agreed with Poe on the importance of energy exports.

“The ability—long term—to sell energy around the world is a game-changer,” Brady said. “That will create 300,000 jobs in our region.”