Gavel falls on a great session for Senator Uresti
Sen. Carlos Uresti passed a total of 38 bills and resolutions in the 83rd legislative session that gaveled to a close on Monday, including the top priority of his legislative agenda — getting help for battered county roads.
Uresti accomplished a number of other primary goals, including measures on child protection, children’s health, the environment, and government efficiency measures.
He also worked with his colleagues to secure more money for public education and mental health programs, reduce the number of tests that school students must pass to graduate, give students greater curriculum choices, and create a constitutionally dedicated fund for the State Water Plan with $2 billion from the rainy day fund.
“It was a successful session for the people of Texas, thanks to the spirit of bipartisanship and compromise among members of both parties,” Uresti said. “We passed a balanced state budget that provides more money for our schools, enacted education reforms, and created a long-term solution for funding our water needs. This session truly looked to the future.”
Senate Bill 1747 creates a $225 million Transportation Infrastructure Fund and allows counties in high-impact oil and gas producing regions to create County Energy Transportation Reinvestment Zones. By establishing such zones, counties can use increased revenues from county property and sales taxes to repair and maintain roads that are being battered by oil and production activities in shale regions.
“This bill will provide much-needed relief to counties in Senate District 19 that are in the forefront of the oil boom,” Uresti said. “County roads are the gateway to the oil patch, and helping counties repair and maintain them will allow producers to continue providing jobs and prosperity to the state and local governments. We have saved the goose that laid the golden egg.”
Uresti also passed House Bill 217, which bans the sale of sugary drinks to students at public school campuses, and Senate Bill 553, which allows students to participate in early voting clerkships and receive an excused absence for that missed day of school.
An important child protection measure, Senate Bill 771 requires special training for Child Protective Services employees who are hired for or promoted to a supervisory position. The goal is to ensure that supervisors are well equipped before they begin their new responsibilities and thus help reduce the agency’s staff turnover rate. Senate Bill 769 establishes a pilot program in Bexar County to provide specialized training to foster parents of children with severe mental health needs or those who have experienced extreme trauma.
Other major bills authored or sponsored by Sen. Uresti:
Senate Bill 890 creates the Reeves County Groundwater Conservation District, allowing the county to manage, protect, and preserve its aquifer. If the district is approved by Reeves County voters, seven directors will be appointed by the Reeves County Commissioners Court to serve staggered four-year terms.
House Bill 1348 exempts commercial aircraft from taxation as tangible personal property while they are being manufactured at a closed military base organized as a development authority under state law. The measure is designed to maintain and attract jobs at San Antonio’s Brooks City Base.
Senate Bill 316 provides for a legislative interim study on prescription opioid abuse, with a focus on tamper resistant opioids. It also directs the Texas pharmacy board to offer some sort of continuing education for pharmacists regarding prescription drug abuse generally, with a specific component on tamper resistant opioids.
Senate Bill 1756 gives the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality the ability to charge an applicant for any additional expenses incurred by the agency from expediting the air permit application process under the Clean Air Act. Both the applicant and the TCEQ executive director must determine that the expedited permit is an economic benefit to the state, and all parties must comply with all federal and state regulatory requirements.
House Bill 3337 allows Frio County to collect the hotel occupancy tax, generating revenues to improve current infrastructure, maintain historic sites, and develop future projects.
Senate Bill 551 allows the City of Pecos to use hotel occupancy tax revenues to develop multisport complexes that could host district, regional, statewide, and even national sports tournaments.
Senate Bill 1757 bans the manufacture, sale, distribution, purchase, or possession of license plate flippers, a device that allows a motorist to quickly switch license plates to avoid paying toll fees or to evade detection by law enforcement.
House Bill 3952 adds the county judge as a member of the Val Verde county juvenile board, putting into statute a policy that has proven to work for the county for the last couple of decades.
House Bill 489 allows disabled Texans and veterans who rely on service animals, such as Seeing Eye dogs, to have access to food establishments and retail stores.
House Bill 3447 places San Antonio within the borders covered by the San Antonio Urban Land Bank Program, which will identify, acquire, manage, and dispose of unproductive, underutilized, or otherwise deteriorating properties in order to create safe, healthy, and sustainable neighborhoods.
Senate Bill 1833 allows Val Verde County to collect a 2 percent hotel tax within the municipal limits or extraterritorial jurisdiction of cities in the county. The county sought the bill because the City of Del Rio had already imposed a maximum hotel tax of 7 percent, leaving the county no ability to collect the tax.
House Bill 1871 allows the Utopia ISD to pay election costs proportionate to how many registered voters in the county are located within the district’s boundaries. Utopia, a rural school district that lies within the boundaries of four counties, is currently required to work out election agreements with each county to hold its school board election. Bill would require each county to work out reasonable costs with the district.
Senate Bill 891 (language attached as amendment to House Bill 3153) establishes county court of law in Atascosa County
Sen. Uresti represents Senate District 19, which covers more than 35,000 square miles and contains all or part of 17 counties, two international ports of entry, ten state parks, 51 school districts, almost 9,000 miles of highways and county roads, and more than 29,000 producing oil and gas wells. The district is larger than 11 states and 124 Nations, and contains almost 400 miles of the Texas-Mexico border.
