By Cyrus Reed
The Texas Legislature always begins with a bit of pomp and circumstance -- votes for the Speaker of the House, the Governor’s State of the State, the unveiling of initial proposed budgets, and the announcement of emergency measures. We are past that and the legislature has collectively rolled up their sleeves and is hard at work.
Committees have been named, and they are already having hearings on bills, some of them controversial. Among those are proposals being pushed by Governor Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick to significantly limit the growth in property taxes by requiring a vote locally if any city wants to increase the tax rate by more than two percent. Hearings have been held in both the House (HB 2 by Burrows) and Senate (SB 2 by Bettencourt), with literally hours of testimony -- mainly against this effort to control local decision-making. The Senate is expected to move faster to get final approval.
Another controversial bill -- SB 15 (Creighton) -- which would prohibit cities from creating work-related ordinances -- like paid sick leave -- had a long hearing this week in Senate State Affairs. While these are not traditional “conservation” bills, Sierra Club believes they would unduly interfere in local decisions. They are a form of state interference, put real constraints on improvements, and are counterproductive. We urge the Legislature to put these proposals on the shelf!
The Budget
The budget bills have been discussed more than any other bill so far, and there are competing proposals in the House (HB 1) and Senate (SB 1). Sierra Club has been testifying on both (see written testimony), and attending subcommittee meetings where members vote on specific requests for additional money made by agencies. While all of this is somewhat opaque -- with Senate Working Group meetings announced at a moment’s notice -- we are making a difference.
This week for example, after ignoring a proposal to increase funding for mobile monitoring equipment at TCEQ to better analyze potential pollution -- like that we saw in the Houston area after Hurricane Harvey -- a coalition of groups, including the Sierra Club, pressed the House Subcommittee to reconsider. They did (kind of) approving money for optical gas imaging cameras, electron microscopes, and one mobile monitoring van, but they did not take action on a request for another two vans.
Similarly, while initially delaying a decision on getting another 22 inspectors for the Railroad Commission, we and others helped convince the subcommittee to approve funding for the much needed inspectors.
More efforts are needed, as we continue to press for more funding for state and local parks, clean air funding and water conservation efforts.
The committee will now consider other “riders” -- essentially requests from other representatives for additional expenditures or studies as part of the state’s two-year budget, including a Sierra Club recommendation for a water audit study and pilot program at the Texas Water Development Board.
Meanwhile, Sen. Jane Nelson, Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, announced working groups, and heading up the work group looking at the natural resource agencies are Sen. Robert Nichols, Sen. “Chuy” Hinojosa, Sen. Birdwell, and Sen. Charles Perry.
Other Bills
With more than 1,000 Senate bills, and now nearly 3,000 House bills, just looking over them takes a lot of time. Here is a list of the ones we have reviewed so far, including the ones we like, oppose, and are just keeping an eye on for now. This list will keep growing through March 8, the bill filing deadline.
So what about the bills we are prioritizing? Have they been filed?
Some have.
Rep. Ron Reynolds has filed both a study bill on methane emissions and regulations (HB 225) and a good bill on the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan (HB 2581), while Sen. Birdwell (SB 531), Rep. Blanco (HB 1043) and Chairman J.M. Lozano (HB 1746) have also filed bills that would extend the fees that support TERP, which helps clean our air. Rep. Eddie Lucio III has filed a protective bill requiring better controls on oil and gas wells located in flood-prone zones (HB 1147). These are all priorities for the Sierra Club as are bills allowing local government to regulate plastic bags (HB 514 by Rep. Gina Hinojosa and SB 648 by Rep. Zaffirini) and other container products (HB 856 by Hinojosa and SB 777 by Zaffirini). There are lots of other great bills on improving safety and enforcement related to aggregate production, sand mining, municipal solid waste landfills and concrete batch plants, and we will be actively supporting most of those bills.
But other Sierra Club priorities like required leak detection inspections for oil and gas facilities to prevent methane leaks, better regulation of oil and gas wastewater injection wells, required outdoor watering restrictions, and better authority for counties to adopt modern building codes are still being considered for filing by a variety of authors.
We will keep pushing so please keep calling to get these important bills filed! It’s been tremendous to hear about all the Texans calling their legislators urging them to file important bills. Please keep it up!
However, yes, there have been some bills filed that we very much DO NOT support. But that’s for a different blog. Look for one soon with a list of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly bills that have been filed soon after March 8.