The 83rd Texas Legislature Sine Die Monday, May 28th with 6,061 bills and proposed constitutional amendments filed and 23.7 percent of those bills/amendments passed.  In comparison, 2011 lawmakers filed 6,303 bills and passed 22.4%.

Highlights of Major Legislation Affecting Rural Texas:

• HB 4 and related bills, if voters approved it in November, will move $2 billion from the state's Rainy Day Fund to a new revolving loan account for water infrastructure and conservation projects.

• Restructuring of the Texas Water Development Board with 3 Commissioners, one of which designated to be from Rural Texas

• $15.5 million was restored to the Local parks Grant program administered by TPWD, however the amount remains less than half of TPWD 2010-11 budget.

• Rural Broadband Support Continues through Universal Service Fund---

  SB 583 will save Texans money by ending support to suburban communities that were once considered high-cost rural areas of the state, only true rural areas - the ones that really need it - will now receive support. Providers with fewer than 31,000 customers - the small providers - will continue to receive a predictable level of support from the Small Company Fund through 2017. Medium-sized providers - those with more than 31,000 customers - must submit to a "Needs Test" or their support will be cut by 25% annually for 3 years beginning as early as 2017. 

• HB 1554 by Lucio regarding rural community/economic development--made it all the way to the House floor for the final vote but ran out of time and died along with 75 other bills on the House floor.  ARCIT received an award from Sen. Lucio for all the "heavy lifting" we did during session in involving over 400 rural local officials during the process.  ARCIT will be working with Sen. Lucio and other legislators during the interim studying rural economic and community development to build an even stronger coalition for next session

• Click on 83rd Texas Legislature Rural Bill Tracking Chart to review the rural bills that ARCIT was tracking and their final status

•  Governor Perry called a special session to address congressional and legislative redistricting.  As of June 10th, the Governor has added transportation issues relating to the funding of transportation infrastructure projects.

Governor Perry has until June 16th to sign or veto bills or the bills can become law without his signature.

The interim will be full with legislative hearings and studies, along with ARCIT monitoring and also conducting rural studies to begin the thorough, coalition building for a solid rural front on rural community and economic development.

Please email us at donna@arcit.org if you are interested in serving on an ARCIT interim committee regarding community/economic, water or environmental issues.