Senate Finance: Article VI – February 13, 2023

The Senate Committee on Finance met on February 13th to discuss the following Article VI agencies. This report focuses on LBB and agency presentations for the following topics.

• General Land Office and Veteran’s Land Board
• Department of Agriculture
• Railroad Commission
• Commission on Environmental Quality
• Parks and Wildlife Department
• Animal Health Commission
• Soil and Water Conservation Board
• Water Development Board
  • Debt Service Payments – Non-Self Supporting G.O Bonds
• Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission

An archive of the hearing can be found here.

This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight the various topics taken up. It is not a verbatim transcript of the discussions but is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.

 

Opening Comments

• Chair Joan Huffman- Will review Article VI Natural Resources
• West- Regarding the settlement with the AG, who is going to pay for that?
  • Huffman- Under the lawsuit, it would require legislative appropriation; It would be done through miscellaneous appropriation bill

 

General Land Office and Veteran’s Land Board

Emily Joslin, Legislative Budget Board (LBB)

• General Land Office and Veterans’ Land Board
• Recommendation of $43.7M in PSF for management of PSF and mineral rights properties decrease of $2.4M
• PSF lands total 13M acres in Texas, revenue and royalties are used to support public schools
• GLOs state land board will transfer revenues to the corporation for investment
• Recommendations to delete riders 22,23 and modification of another rider to reflect changes enacted by SB 1232

 

Dawn Buckingham, Commissioner of GLO

• $2.2M in GR for additional cemetery
• $10M in GR to not raise prices for veterans
• Appropriation of funds of Costal erosion response account
• 3 FTE and $300K per year to fund golf coast protection district
• Perry- How many employees were running permanent school fund?
  • We had 5 employees that ran the permanent school fund
• Perry- This PSF Corporation came up because people were upset so we set it up as a private entity; they are not required to make distribution from the investments?
  • That is correct the Permanent school fund corporation would not be required to give a minimum amount to the Available School Fund unless legislature decides to do so
• Perry- We should make sure there is some minimum distribution required in their operating agreement

 

Railroad Commission

Emily Joslin, Legislative Budget Board (LBB)

• Railroad Commission
• $428.8M in all funds and 166.6 FTEs increase of 28.5%
• $148.9M from GRD 5155 $1.5M decrease
• $25M grant received and plans to plug 600-800 wells
• Recommend $22.7M in GR appropriation for activities related to SB 3
• Exceptional items total $21.5M and 15 FTEs

 

Christi Craddick, Chairman of Railroad Commission of Texas

• Funding for fleet vehicle is in Article IX
• Request of $7M for 50 FTEs and inspector vehicles
• Asking for 5 FTEs Oil and gas permits and environmental permits
• Perry- Extra FTEs to get you to the 90 day deadline under HB 3515?
  • Our challenge is cost so we believe well be able to
• Zaffirini- What do we need to do to qualify and maintain federal funding to plug wells?
  • We are looking at the purposed federal guidelines to see what we can or can’t take
• Zaffirini- Is the cleanup fund sufficient?
  • We feel like we are working in the right direction
• Nichols- Railroad has says they are not going to update rule 8, why is that?
  • This is a not easy rule, standards have changed over time, but there is a draft circulating

 

Department of Agriculture

Rachel Stegal, Legislative Budget Board (LBB)

• Department of Agriculture
• $30M in GR for Texans feeding Texans decrease
• $19.9M for home delivered meals and $10.1M surplus agricultural products grant program

 

Sid Miller, Commissioner of Texas Department of Agriculture

• Budget would lower fee for ranchers
• Would like transfer authority
• Road stations is one of departments weakest links; rely on federal grant that will expire this year
• Rural healthcare is the other weak link

 

Jason Fearneyhough, Deputy Commissioner of Texas Department of Agriculture-

• Without replacement of those funds, we won’t have an entry point inspection at all
• Perry- you’re looking to expand Texans feeding Texans?
  • Yes
• Kolkhorst– Does your department help or coordinate with operation Lone Star?
  • We offered to send our trucks to help DPS but that didn’t happen
• Paxton – Farmers finding themselves surrounded/in municipalities & having challenges with city ordinances and HOAs; do you have any authority to provide resources or guidance?
  • Miller – Before a city can annex land with an ag valuation on it, can continue to work & farmland without needing leave from the city; needs to be revisited, some municipalities are not honoring this
  • Some cities putting 5-year limitation on this, but legislature was clear it should be indefinite
  • Also have heard interest in “right to farm” act
• Paxton – Have heard of some ordinances that require farmers to mow, loss of revenue
  • Miller – Issue is farmers farming within limits of Frisco, Lewisville, etc. & city is not gaining full tax valuation; cities would like farmers to be gone so they can collect full commercial rate
• Paxton – Open to working with you and bringing balance back to honor agreements
  • Miller – Someone needs to revisit non-annexation and clarify that there can’t be a limit
• Campbell – Multiple states have a restriction on land foreigners can purchase, filed bill last session that expands critical infrastructure to ag land; important that hostile countries don’t purchase ag land, particularly China
  • Miller – Appreciated work last session stopping wind farm in Del Rio
  • 8 states prohibit foreign ag land ownership, 34 have restrictions
  • Have some movement on it in TX, federal legislation also moving; not wise to let our enemies come in and own food source, military infrastructure, etc.
  • Smithfield Foods, largest pork producer, is owned by China
• Nichols – Hand-delivered meals, is that Meals on Wheels?
  • Miller – Part of the grant funding goes to that
  • Also developed home-delivered meals boxed lunch program for school children
• Nichols – So this started because of COVID?
  • Miller – Yes
• Nichols – Beginning to license EV testing stations, you decided you needed to be able to measure kWh?
  • Correct, directed to regulate anything involving measurements; need to get certified
• Nichols – So it’s to know where they are?
  • Correct, some consumer protection oversight
• Nichols – Who is responsible for verifying home electric meters? Water meters?
  • We do not do those
  • City usually does water, TDA sometimes does LNG meters
• Bettencourt – You have a 20-year-old bridge system, not on San Angelo servers, what do you have exactly?
  • Bruce Hermes, TDA – We have a split of servers on PRIM, some in a public cloud
• Bettencourt – So the bridge system is middleware?
  • Hermes – Developed custom for TDA some time ago, maintaining it internally
• Bettencourt – If you got the exceptional item, would TDA be the project manager?
  • Hermes – Yes, depending on quotes would be open to independent verification and validation
• Bettencourt – What is your security-level at this point?
  • Hermes – Taken some great strides over the last 2 years, not without potential flaws
• Bettencourt – Moving cybersecurity over to DIR?
  • Hermes – Separate projects with separate funding
  • Present funding to move off of bridge is not enough to move everything, slicing it piece-by-piece
  • Trouble is you will have two systems to maintain for sometime and lose economic advantage of move for a time
• Bettencourt – Timeline?
  • Hermes – Hopeful we can complete within the biennium with funding
  • Focus is to get mature software product that does nothing but licensing & certification
• Bettencourt- And you can get some advice form DIR; archival records will need to be accessed through bridge?
  • Hermes – One possibility; better process would be to migrate given funding and time
• Bettencourt – Still responsible for weights & measurements at gas stations?
  • Miller – Was given to TDLR 4 years ago
• Flores – Appreciates comments on rural hospitals, fully supports anything that can be done; concerned we aren’t coordinating with HHSC
  • Miller – For anything we can do to help rural health care
  • Office was with HHSC before and it was neglected, legislature moved it to TDA
• Flores – Wineries are in my district, imported wines have a fee & was to be used to support wineries in Texas?
  • Miller – Arbitrarily send us $250k, supposed to be $1m; want someone to look at this to separate these fines out, this is designated funds & not going to the purpose
• Flores – Agency action or statute?
  • Miller – Statute is there, need to figure out if it can be separated
• Flores – Asks Miller to contact his office about this, happens a lot with designated fees & want to make sure TDA has funds designated for this and for them
• Hinojosa – Interesting that TDA has authority to inspect commercial truck without probable cause; means you do rolling stops inside the border, could look at fruits & vegetables, but also human trafficking
  • Miller – Have spoken with DPS, McCraw, but wasn’t received
• Hinojosa – Some companies are buying huge parcels of land for solar panels, also have issues with nuisance reports
  • Miller – Right to Farm for Texas needed
• Perry – Some Right to Farm legislation is being drafting; last 2 sessions have had $500m into rural health care for Medicaid reimbursement; may be true it was neglected in the past, but it has gotten a tremendous amount of funding
• Perry – Also put in money under the FQHC incubator, provides services to rural areas; rural health care is a challenge and federal gov recognized that with enhanced Medicaid rate
• Perry – Doing a lot and need to do more; hasn’t been neglected
  • Miller – neglected 15-20 years ago when it was at HHSC
• Perry and Miller discuss amounts given to rural hospitals
• Kolkhorst – Concerned about inspection volume in California and Florida versus what we do here; need to take a hard look at this
• Kolkhorst – Campbell & I worried about food security with lands being bought up; also made a good point about land taken up by solar panels and taken out of production, any studies being done on percentage of ag production lost?
  • Miller – A lot of info out there, basically 1 farm/week lost to urban scrawl or encroachment
  • But land isn’t the problem, limiting factor is water
  • DPS can open trucks without probable cause, but can’t go in
• Bettencourt – Asks about non-annexation issue
  • Miller – Intent was an indefinite non-annexation, municipalities putting 5-year terms
• Bettencourt – We’ll take a look at it

 

Commission on Environmental Quality

Daniel Knapp, Legislative Budget Board (LBB)

• Commission on Environmental Quality
• $681M in All Funds for 24-25, increase of 1.6%, 2,824 FTEs
• TCEQ undergoing strategic fiscal & Sunset review
• $10.5M for Rio Grande Compact Commission litigation, increase from previous biennium derived from amounts in previous GAA and supplemental bill; litigation has been ongoing since 2013, AG has announced settlement proposal & no damages if it is approved
• Recommendations include UB for site remediation and cleanups
• $47.2M for targeted salary increase, $8.8M for salary increase to other FTEs
• Strategic fiscal review & Sunset finding highlighted on Pg 8
• TERP rider changed to be a cashflow rider instead of appropriate, removes limit on funds usable for admin costs; still required to reimburse TERP GR-D account

 

Emily Lindley, Commissioner of TCEQ

• Appreciates salary increase, but still need help; TCEQ has highest turnover of Art. VI agencies and 7th highest of agencies with 1k or more, increased dramatically over last few years
• Exceptional item 1 designed to help address turnover issues; will start seeing delays in permitting if turnover isn’t addressed
• Other exceptional items incl. website usability, increased access to public records, maintenance & security costs for TCEQ Austin campus, compliance history, dam safety
• Rider asks include cashflow authorization for TERP trust fund
• Account 549 will hit $0 around 2025-26, huge GR-D account for TCEQ
• West – According to federal government, 9k miles and half of state lakes are polluted or impaired; is that the case? Are you aware of it?
  • Lindley – Yes, to both
• West – What are we doing?
  • Lindley – We issue protective permits and takes baseline into account; TX baseline is worse off than in other states
  • Office of Water has a division that reviews TMDLs & have had issues hitting mark
• West – Understand it is a concern, what are we doing?
  • Lindley – When waterway is impaired, TCEQ assigns a TMDL that builds a discharge permit; depending on the TMDL it goes into what permit limit is for discharges
  • Water Quality Division is behind, more vacancies here than in any other
• West – Lack staff to make sure TMDLs are met?
  • Lindley – Big portion of why, also quantity of rivers and bodies of water
• West – Have 9k miles of impaired rivers, 12k sq miles of lakes
  • Lindley – Answer is bodies and funding to support Water Quality functions; cannot tackle all of the impaired rivers without people and money
• West – What’s the impact of having polluted rivers & lakes?
  • Lindley – When issuing permits, TCEQ is looking at human impact
• West – Are these waters used for the water supply?
  • Lindley – Yes, but needs to be treated before going into human water supply, will need to treat impaired water to a higher standard
• West – Pulling water from impaired bodies?
  • Lindley – Yes
  • Cari-Michel La Caille, TCEQ – Continuing to address impairments with quality management strategies
• West – Are we pulling water from impaired bodies?
  • La Caille – Yes, also regulating those that are pulling the water to make sure it is safe to drink
• West – Can you expand on impaired waters? Hearing you don’t have funding and staff to address this
• Perry – Couple ways waterways are impaired incl natural flow; water impairment is significant before it is treated; where we can control impairment, we should, but reality is you will never have a body of water that is impaired at some level
• West – Concur, but we have an agency responsible for reducing impairment, question is how they are doing their job
• Perry – Key is to know when waterways are impaired, having staff and resources; unfortunately many times you don’t know about impairment until after the fact
• West – Think we should be more proactive, should determine if this is a staffing issue and how it aligns with health & safety
• West – Sunset #1 issue is TCEQ’s processes don’t allow for meaningful public input; what money from the budget is being used to address this?
  • Lindley – Exceptional item #2 speaks to Sunset recommendation 1.5 re; website and public access improvements
  • On public mistrust, a lot of things might go into that characterization, very hard for member of the public to understand what TCEQ is doing; TCEQ is now requiring one-page plain-language summary
• West – Sunset also criticized compliance monitoring and enforcement
  • Lindley – Exceptional item #5 deals with compliance history, need to update website
• Zaffirini – To what extent have you resolved the revolving door for the private sector; turnover?
  • Lindley – There is a revolving door for the Commissioner
  • Erin Chancellor, TCEQ – For the revolving door, there are restrictions on 3 commissioners and exec dir, other issues incl. Bar restrictions for attorneys, etc.
• Zaffirini – I know agency has been embarrassed because Exec Dir made a decision against staff recommendation and then went to work for the entity he ruled in favor of; would like you to check on this and get back to me
• Zaffirini – Salaries for federally dedicate programs?
  • Chancellor – For federal dedicated programs, whenever we apply to EPA need to demonstrate proper staff & structure
  • Being able to have vacancies filled will be helpful for agency operations & administering these programs
  • Making it work with available staff, but timeframes will be affected
• Zaffirini – Does this proposed budget include funding to address Sunset recommendations?
  • Lindley – Short answer is no, budget only deals with management actions & not necessarily statutory
• Zaffirini – Required to spend so much time on applications that are deficient, delayed, or have misrepresentations; what can we do to help? Should we consider a one-time fee? Fee for repetitive application reviews, for delay?
  • Lindley – One permit has one fee; would love to explore this discussion and important when one entity takes a large amount of agency time
• Perry – Dams are our responsibility, becoming high hazard as population grows, TCEQ inspects
• Perry – As supply or input sources deplete, water quality goes down with it; makes the water level more important, our job it to make sure they are at the level needed to prevent this
• Flores – What is your overall turnover percentage?
  • Lindley – 18% in FY22, up from 12% in previous years
• Flores – LBB measures are a metric on performance, how many measures do you have?
  • Lindley – Can get you the number, 5 performance measures we didn’t hit the mark on
• Flores – Result of staffing? Economy?
  • Chancellor – For those 5, part of the reason was vacancies
• Bettencourt – Reason for vacancies? Technical qualifications, salaries?
  • Lindley – Pay & benefits is the first reason, also having difficulty competing with local government/other agencies

 

Parks and Wildlife Department

Emily Joslin, Legislative Budget Board (LBB)

• Parks and Wildlife Department
• Will use SGST funds to fund land projects
• Exceptional item for $32.1M in GR funds to complete project at several statewide facilities
• Battleship TEXAS $15M in GR funding for a grant to the battleship Texas foundation for the ongoing repairs being made to the ship
• Recommend modifications to rider 34 Battleship Texas to delete language pertaining to appropriation made by SB 500 to note addition of $15M grant and to amend timeline and content of report
• $4.8M in all funds for CWD management activities
• $209.1M to help maintain operation of state parks
• Palo Pinto Mountain State Park will open in 2023
• Fairfield lake state park, Jan 2023 Park continues to operate; Site is under contract property owner intends to terminate lease
• Hinojosa- There is a request for 90 additional game wardens?
  • That amount is included in the request

 

Dick Scott, Vice Chairman for Parks and Wildlife Commission

• If there is park land available, we should get it
• Asking for salary increases
• Training for game warden officers

 

David Yoskowitz, Executive Director for Parks and Wildlife Commission

• Capitol transportation system
• 9 Exceptional items of $122M
• Boat registration, is out of date
• Oyster license buyback program
• $6.6M for salary increases
• TPW 180 vacate notice
• Huffman- We are extremely disappointed if the state loses Fairfield, Vistra is owner of property?
  • That is correct
• Perry- There is one park by Vistra, are we starting negotiations on this?
  • Yes we have begun getting started on it
• Perry- do we just have one helicopter in the fleet?
  • That is correct
• Zaffirini- How do you balance funding request for parks vs wildlife?
  • Funding for parks is Game Tax and park fees; Fund 9 revenue is dedicated for all the other divisions
• Zaffirini- CWD how do you balance what you should pay for compared to other agencies
  • We are looking at coming up with a methodology; department has spent 9M over the past 5 years on CWD
• Kolkhorst- Are there any studies to know if CWD spreads to other wildlife?
  • Clayton Wolf, COO– Studies have not been successful on all dee; will get back to you
• Kolkhorst- Do you have the authority to notify landowners if there is a positive CWD case?
  • Based off previous legislation, it’s our opinion we do not have the authority to do that
• Kolkhorst- What is the value in buying back oyster license?
  • Yoskowitz- Our goal is to bring the 546 to 250
• Kolkhorst- Does the law allow for someone to own a license and sell it?
  • Don’t know the answer to that one
• Kolkhorst- how many buy backs do you think will be successful?
  • Commission has decided to close Carlos Mesquite Reef
• Flores- What are the types of tools that you’ll need to address the coastal waters?
  • Making sure our teams have the equipment that they need
• Flores- How has the supply chain affected you?
  • The challenges we are having is buying the expenditures in bulk
• Hinojosa- how many vacancies do you have of game wardens?
  • Don’t have it in front of me but, approximately 550 vacancies
• Hall- How much have we spent on CWD?
  • Wolf- Around 90M
• Hall- It’s not unique to Texas?
  • That’s correct
• Hall- Wisconsin shut down their hunting because of CWD what happened?
  • There are still deer
• Hall- We have two groups of deer in Texas, right?
  • Wild deer, and breed deer
• Hall- How many of the breeder deer have?
  • We now allow for live animal testing
• Hall- Compare what we’ve spent on testing you’ve done compared to deer breeder testing?
  • I wouldn’t want to speculate
• Hall- Have we killed any wild deer to test them?
  • Yes we have
• Hall- in 2015 we had 17,000 deer breeders now we have 7,000?
  • We are working with epidemiologist to help test for CWD in the wild
• Hall- from what I have heard CWD does not affect heard size?
  • No, each heard reacts differently compared to population dynamics
• Hall- on page 5 there is nothing in there about deer breeders?
  • Our mission is to protect all deer

 

Animal Health Commission

AJ Lionberger, Legislative Budget Board (LBB)

• Animal Health Commission
• $32.8M in all funds 1% increase
• Funding increase associated with animal disease testing
• Cattle fever tick mitigation $9.1M in all funds
• Continue funding levels for CWD
• $1M in GR for Laboratory testing services
• 5 exceptional item requests totaling $1.1M

 

Andy Schwartz, Executive Director of Animal Health Commission

• $800K request for employee salary equity
• $98.6K for modernization of Animal Health Systems
• $130K to perform livestock inspections
• $108K for Executive Director Salary
• Perry- There is not crossover with animal and vegetation
  • That is correct, we have used their waystations
• Nichols- PWD works with deer y’all work with exotic livestock have you seen any crossover?
  • We have seen a free ranging elk in the panhandle test positive
• Perry- We don’t test elk bringing from other states?
  • They must be in a monitored heard for at least 5 years
• Perry- If someone brings an elk over from another state do we test for it?
  • No we do not
• Perry- I don’t understand why we don’t test if they bring it from somewhere over the country?
  • We do not have a test if they bring it across state lines

 

Soil and Water Conservation Board

Rachel Stegal, Legislative Budget Board (LBB)

• Soil and Water Conservation Board
• $79.7M for all funds increase of 4.3%
• Cariso Cane Eradication $7.2M in GR
• $16.8M across all soil and water conservation districts
  • Recommendation does not include $5.5M in GR funding to offset inflation
• $37.5M in all funds to address structural repair of earthen flood control damns
• $8.3M for water quality management plan program
• On ground conservation program 1.3M and 1FTE not included in recommendations

 

David Bassinger, Vice Chairman of Soil and Water Conservation Board

Rex Isom, Executive Director of Soil and Water Conservation Board

John Foster, Programs Officer of Soil and Water Conservation Board

• $5.4M to increase funding to grant programs
• Increase to $50M base budget for flood control dam programs
• Request for $150M to address back log of
• Request for $4.2M Water fund management program
• Request for $1.3M startup funding for on the ground conservation program
• Request for 4FTE and $77K
• Nichols- on earthen flood control dams, are they levees?
  • No sir it’s not a levee, they are dams
• Perry- the other 150 you believe you can manage it
  • Yes, sir we do believe we can manage it
• There are about 20 new dam rehabs that we will need to do
• Zaffirini- if you get the funding requested will you be able to protect us from the 658 hazardous damns in the state?
  • It’s just a small bite in the apple We must provide a match to the FED at 35% but
• Hancock- Maintaining the Damns is more expensive because the standards are much higher is that correct?
  • Yes, that’s correct, it’s not just the loss of life but also the infrastructure of Texas
• Huffman- Are these on private property?
  • Yes, virtually all of them are
• Huffman- Why are the locals not providing?
  • It’s a good question, but has a complicated answer, a lot of counties do not come with the funding
• Members went into a long discussion regarding the $2B needed in repairs for 658 Damns

 

Water Development Board

AJ Lionberger, Legislative Budget Board (LBB)

• Texas Water Development Board
• $419.9M in all funds decrease of 23.1%
• Removal of 1 time funding $50M
• $96.6M in other funds for continued flood funding and planning activities
• $91.5M from Texas Infrastructure Resiliency Fund TIRF decrease of $34.8M
• $5.2M in GR to be transferred to WAF
• 8 exceptional items request $726.3M and 98 FTEs
• Debt Service Payments – Non-Self-Supporting G.O. Bonds
  • Public Finance Authority – G.O. Bond Debt Service
  • Recommendation for EDAP $67.3M in all funds increase of $7.3M for debt service on EDPA bonds
  • Modify rider 17, require agency to report bond issuance information from previous fiscal year
  • $46.9M in WIF repayments for WIF debt service decrease of 85.5M now self-supporting
  • Consolidate two WIF riders into rider 14

 

Jeff Walker, Executive Administrator of Texas Water Development Board

• Facing aging infrastructure
• State water plan says need to invest $80B over the next 50 years to meet supply needs
• Increase in workload but no increase in labor

 

Brook Pop, Chairwoman of Texas Water Development Board

• Faced with huge population growth and aging infrastructure
• $19M for project management and risk mitigation package and 51 FTEs
• $4.1M Water supply planning package
• $170M and 14 FTEs for Rural assistance package
• $8.5M and 22 FTEs Data enhancement and modernization
• $394M for flood package and infusion into flood infrastructure fund; does included change in finance for 74 existing FTEs
• $125M in matching funds for debt service and will provide $476M in loan capacity
• $175K share technology services
• Sen Royce West– Is your agency responsible for the inventory of lead pipes in the state?
  • Walker- we are not responsible for the inventory TCEQ is; we are responsible for funding the projects
• West- Is the EDAP program running out of money?
  • We have authority to issues $100M worth of bonds, then well have another $100M next biennium
• West- Would it need to re appropriate it?
  • Yes that’s correct, unless we get additional authority
• Perry- 150B gallons of water goes through supply system, if you get cash can you get it out?
  • Pop- yes sir
• Kolkhorst- Will inflation reduction act help at all?
  • I believe IIJ funds will be a benefit to the state
• Creighton– How many project are involved with the use of Flood Infrastructure Fund?
  • We have committed over $500M to 140 flood projects

 

Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission

Daniel Knapp, Legislative Budget Board (LBB)

• Low-level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission
• $900K in GR dedicated funds
• Recommendations maintain base funding
• 3 exceptional items totaling $190K

 

Steven Raines, Executive Director for Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission

John Salsman, Vice Chair for Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission

• Agency regulates interstate commerce of low-level radioactive waste coming into and out of the State and Vermont
• $50K for public education efforts to educate on agencies purpose
• $40K in contingency funding for possible litigation due to rules changes
• $5K for technology and infrastructure upgrades
• Perry- The level of waste has not change in 11 years is that correct?
  • No

 

Public Testimony

Jason Modglin, Texas Alliance of Energy Producers

• Additional pipeline inspectors

 

Cyrus Reed, Sierra Club

• In favor of items 2,3,4,5
• TCEQ will be required to look at methane due to Federal regulations

 

Virgina Palacios, Commission Shift

• Oil and Gas cleanup fund are fully appropriated to the Railroad Commission so they can fully fulfill their mission

 

Celia Cole, Feeding Texas

• In Support of agricultural service grant

 

Stacy Sanchez-Heir, No Kid Hungry

• Eliminating reduce price category meal
• 200K kids will benefit from reduced price meals
• 6M-32M projected biennial coast

 

Tim Allision, SW Research institute

• Request under TCEQ for STEP demo project
• Primarily funded by US Department of energy
• Purpose would be to design, scope, and build a project power plant
• Nichols- Do you have any of these running?
  • We have portions of this system; this will be the first 10MW system we run

 

Craig Chick, Major Hydrogen Lines Alliance

• Hydrogen truck refueling program call TURK
• Refueling stations are robust not any built in the contrary
• Would ask for infrastructure investment by the state

 

Alex Ortiz, Sierra Club

• Primary cause of fish kills is due to oxygen impairments
• Mercury from edible tissue impairments
• The Oyster buyback program is aimed at commercial vessels, doesn’t address commercial fishers

 

David Terry, Conservation interest of Bass Angler

• Exceptional Item 1 are needed to do job

 

John Shepperd, Texas foundation for Conservation

• Money from fund 9 comes fees from hunters
• Put money from fund 9 to work

 

Shane Bonnot, Costal Conservation Association

• Regarding buybacks oyster reefs are in public state of decline
• Our fishery is over capitalized
• Oyster reefs are fundamental to reef habitat
• Please use Fund 9 to accommodate

 

Craig Nazar, Sierra Club

• Texas needs more park land
• Budget request is good, but more is needed
• Mountain lions’ population continue to decline
• Ask that TPWD

 

Luke Metzger, Environment Texas

• Texas needs more park land
• Ranked 35^th in nation for State Park acers per capita

 

Lori Olson, Texas Land Trust Council

• In support of salary increase

 

Justin Dreibelbis, Texas Wildlife Association

• In support of TPWD request
• All exceptional items except one are covered by Game Tax
• One request is 8M for expansion

 

Kirby Brown, Ducks Unlimited

• In support of TPWD request
• Migratory bird fund has not been appropriated correctly
• Kolkhorst- What are you seeing with bird migration and loss of rice farmers?
  • In the gulf coast we have seen a down turn, and its worse when water is not available for rice farmers; Rice farmers produce 60-65% of food source for migratory birds
• Kolkhorst- Where would y’all be looking to do with wildlife management
  • We would leave that up to TPWD, perhaps somewhere between Houston and San Antonio

 

Rahul Sreenivasan, Texas 2036

• Supports fully funding Parks and Wildlife conservation program
• 10M Texans visit state parks

 

Trent Hightower, Texas Veterinary Medical Association

• In support of exceptional items

 

Andy Wier, Sims Bureau Aquifer Water Defense Fund

• Supports for TWD research and planning fund

 

Sarah Kirkle, Texas Water Conservation Association

• Support for water infrastructure

 

Marie Camino, Nature Conservancy Texas Chapter

• Support for funding for flood infrastructure fund

 

Hillary Lily, Nature Conservancy Texas Chapter

• Supports increase funding for Texas farm and ranchland conservation program

 

Chase Kronzer, American Flood Coalition

• In support of appropriation for flood mitigation and planning

 

Timothy Buscha, Huston Stronger

• In support of statewide flood plan

 

Mary Alice McKaughaw, Texas Rural Water Association

• Support investment in water infrastructure

 

Danielle Goshen, National Wildlife Federation Texas Coast and Water Program

• Support investment in water infrastructure

 

Michael Bloom, American Society of Civil Engineers

• In support for increase staff funding for Water Development Board

 

Ray Hymel, Texas Public Employers Association

• Thank you for pay raises contained in Article VI

 

Jeremy Mazur, Texas 2036

• In support for increase to Water Development Board budget