Legislature Takes On Bathrooms and Budgets

By Cyrus Reed

Earlier this month, the Texas Legislature convened for the 85th time and, as always, it seems that we are in for an interesting ride. To kick off the session, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, with the help of Sen. Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham, Victoria, Katy), wasted no time in announcing one of this session’s major discriminatory bills that would require people to use the bathroom that correlates with the gender they were born with. Despite the fact that this bill seems to be in contradiction to the value of smaller government and self-governance that the Lt. Governor often espouses and the fact that it would have to involve fundamental civil rights violations to enforce… well we digress (but click here to take action against it).

With significantly less fanfare than the probably unconstitutional “bathroom bill,” Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar released the state budget for the next two years. Arguably more important than regulating people's bathroom use, the Comptroller revealed that Texas has about $3 billion less to spend than was available before the last legislative session. Not surprisingly, political leaders immediately started making statements indicating that Texas would be able to meet needs with some belt tightening. But beneath those statements is the realization that for many programs and needs identified by state agencies, the upcoming legislative session will pit one need against another.

Last week, both the Senate and House released their initial budgets, with the Senate budget coming in at 3 percent less than the previous biennium and the House budget coming at a slight increase (2.4%) over the previous biennium. Both budgets make substantial cuts in the proposed allocations for natural resource agencies at a time when more inspectors, permit writers, and park access are needed. The House is more “generous” than the Senate however.

Table. Proposed Natural Resource Budgets, in $Millions

So what does this mean for Natural Resource agencies?

The natural resource agencies include some of the most important gatekeepers of our state’s environment. Among many others, these include:

• Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ)
• Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC)
• Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD)
• General Land Office (GLO)
• Texas Agricultural Commission (TAC)
• Texas Water Development Board (TWDB)

These agencies typically take up a “whopping” two percent of the total state’s budget, paling in comparison to areas like education, health and human services, public safety and criminal justice, and state highways. With that two percent, they manage to pay for inspectors for Texas’s sprawling pipeline and gas facilities, make drinking water and rivers clean, support grants to clean up vehicle pollution, provide financing for water conservation programs, and pay for the operations and maintenance of our state parks. In short, these agencies are vital to the environment, our health, and the economy of Texas.

A particular area of concern is the water programs overseen by the TCEQ. Many of the natural resources agencies, TCEQ included, are making requests for “exceptional items” --  essentially saying that they need more money to meet basic needs or for special programs. Among these TCEQ exceptional items are:

1. An additional $5,442,712 to meet new Federal drinking water requirements that address copper and lead standards;
2. An additional $1,085,782 for water quality programs, mainly for enforcement and inspections; and
3. An additional $2,709,308 to meet new federal requirements that deal with meeting safety from water-borne bacteria known as the Revised Total Coliform Rule, including 14 additional employees.

Where do we go from here?

Unfortunately, but not shockingly, neither the proposed House nor Senate budgets included these “extra” requests by TCEQ, although language in the bill does authorize TCEQ to increase fees to recover an additional $1.5 million to cover water assessment and planning. In addition, $3.5 million is needed for the dam safety program, and another $25 million for water rights and water quality permitting costs.

Historically, TCEQ “customers” have not paid enough to cover cost of programs and the main avenue of funding, the Water Resources Management Account (or Fund 153), has been underfunded for the past two legislative sessions. While TCEQ has had to raise certain fees every year to cover shortfall, the agency is only allowed to adjust two of the fees that can generate revenue for Fund 153 but neither are raising enough to cover the cost. There is no fee to cover dam safety inspections and the fees for water rights and water quality permitting have a statutory cap that allows them to raise only $6 million of the $25 million needed. This cap, in addition to the caps of other fees, hasn’t been raised in 20 years and one of the main users of water in our state, irrigation users, don’t pay the fee at all.

To fix this incredible discrepancy, TCEQ wants to take money from an oil recovery account (account 146) and divert it into Fund 153. The used oil recovery fee (a penny per quart fee on the sale of automotive oil) was created to raise money to prevent water pollution from used oil dumping and the fee generates over $2 million a year in revenue but only $500,000 of that annual revenue is used to run TCEQ activities related to the purpose of the fee (which includes public education, grants, and registration of handlers of used oil). As a result, the used oil recovery account has a fund balance now of slightly less than $18 million ($17.8 million as of August 31, 2015).

TCEQ would have this diversion of funds and have future revenue from the fee go into Fund 153 after the cost of funding their used oil programs had been covered (typically $500,000).

Sierra Club supports that recommendation and additionally recommends that the Legislature should look at other fee revenue strategies, including:

• Raising the maximum fees in the Water Code above $2,000, which is currently set through a rider in the budget;
• Raising the maximum fees for water rights application permits from $100 to $1,000;
• Raising the maximum Consolidated Water Quality fee from $150,000 to $250,000 and consider eliminating the irrigator exemption;  
• Creating assessment fees for the Dam Safety program which currently do not pay a fee
• Raising the Aggregate Producer Operator fee from a maximum of $1,000 to $2,000 since the current fees do not cover the costs of the program.

While raising fees is never easy, many of these fees have not been adjusted in more than 20 years, and it is only fair that those using our water, or discharging wastewater into our waterways pay for making sure they are clean and drinkable. If our state is to ensure our dams are safe, then dam owners need to pony up. If someone wants to apply to use waters of the state, their fee should support the staff that reviews that request.

Budget hearings have already begun, and we will be there with allies to call for appropriate funding for water programs at TCEQ, water conservation programs at the Texas Water Development Board, enough inspectors at the Railroad Commission of Texas, and enough searchable information on their website, and sufficient funding for state parks and local park grants, among other issues.

In the Senate, the big day to testify on budgets for these agencies is Thursday, February 9. If you want to testify, show up at 9am to the Capitol, sign up and speak your three minutes! Or call your State Senator and let him know you want money for our clean water programs!