89th TX LEGE RURAL LOG

Week of November 25, 2024

Today starts our weekly newsletter tracking the 89th Texas Legislature. We will be following various bills as they make their way through the 89th Legislative Session, with primary focus on bills that may impact rural areas. Priority topics this session are vouchers and public education funding, border issues, rural economic development, agriculture and public health. We also will follow bills filed by rural legislators. If there is a bill you are interested in that we are not tracking, send us a comment or a message and we will add it to our list.

Pre-filing of bills are under way. Here are the pre-filed bills we have zeroed in so far:

• HB 503 Tepper - Relating to the eligibility of certain counties to participate in the rural Sheriff's Office salary assistance.

• HB 1027 Shaheen - Relating to the provision of telepharmacy services.

• SJR 11 Menendez - Constitutional Amendment for Texas Redistricting Commission

• HB1157 Hinojosa - Relating to the use of average enrollment for public school finance (There are several of these bills filed by various legislators. We are not going to list them here but we will be closely watching them to see if any of them gain traction.

• SB 233 Johnson - Relating to the school finance system.

• HB 1257 Bryant - Relating to the compensation of public educators.

• HB 1382 Virdell - Relating to prohibitions on weather modification and control.

• HB 31 Guillen - Constitutional Amendment for exemption of farm products in hands of the producer from property tax.

• HB 519 - Relating to honey production

• HJR 94 - Constitutional amendment for right to produce meat and meat food products from livestock.

• SB 261 Perry - Prohibiting cell-cultured proteins.

• HB 518 Leo Wilson -Relating to the ownership of agricultural land by nonresident aliens or foreign entities.

So far as we can tell at this point, very few rural legislators have filed bills that directly impact rural areas or communities. Pre-filed bills do not tell us much about how the session will shape up and the rate of passage of pre-filed bills is usually low. So you can't read too much into this. Over 1,500 bills have been filed so far.

Many of you may have read about Rep. Landgraf's bill that has been touted as using money from the severance tax fund to cap abandoned oil wells. That is not exactly what that bill provides. It is HJR 47 and is similar to a bill he filed in the last session. It proposes a constitutional amendment to create a "Texas Strong Fund" out of the state's severance tax revenue from oil and natural gas to benefit areas of the sate significantly affected by oil and gas production. It would be used to address public health and safety concerns and workforce preparedness needs. While it could be used for things like capping abandoned and leaking wells, it is not a dedicated fund for that purpose. The expenditure of those funds would still be left up to the legislature. Landgraf's bill did not get much support last time, and is not likely to pass this time either, but we will keep an eye on it.