This morning in the Senate Transportation Committee hearing, Sunset Committee Vice-Chair Senator Hegar explained the Senate's committee substitute to HB 300 (the TxDOT Sunset bill).

Senator Hegar said during the debate of this bill on the House floor that Representatives proposed over 200 amendments and 177 of them were adopted. Of the amendments that were offered and adopted, Senator Hegar said, "Not only did they take the items in the kitchen sink, they took all the items in the refrigerator. They actually went to the grocery store and I think they all pushed baskets down (the aisles) and had two or three and brought everything they could into the baskets. I don't think they paid or checked out, just ran out the door. That's what we had to deal with." 

You can begin watching Senator Hegar's lay out of HB 300 here at the 00:29:00 mark.

Chairman Carona said the committee's intention is to accept amendments to the committee substitute to HB 300 until 3:00 p.m. today, and hopefully vote the bill out of committee on Wednesday.

Senator Hegar said a Senate work group spent three days last week creating the committee substitute to clean up some of the changes made in the House and to get the bill to look more like SB 1019. Senator Hegar is the author of SB 1019, the Senate's version of the TxDOT Sunset bill, which he said was created more with an aim to reform the governance structure of TxDOT (according to the recommendations of the Sunset committee) rather than address substantive policy issues. The Senate committee substitute to HB 300 also incorporates many stand-alone Senate bills that have been passed in the Senate and are now waiting for hearings in the House.

Here's Austin American-Statesman columnist Ben Wear's brief break-down: TxDOT Sunset Bill Still a Work in Progress

Senator Hegar's committee substitute as laid out this morning on the Senate hearing already sounds like the Senate is on the right track to clean up the House's version of the TxDOT Sunset bill. Last week, TSRT Chairman Joe Krier authored an editorial asking the legislature to act quickly to fix the Sunset bill, with an eye toward measures that will help the Legislature adequately fund our road system.

At a time when Texas is billions of dollars short on funds needed to build congestion-relieving roads, Texas lawmakers took the opportunity with the TxDOT sunset bill to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. Instead of addressing pressing issues at the agency, the House result has made a mess of the Sunset bill and, in the precious few remaining weeks of session, need to work diligently to clean it up.

Working into the late hours of the night last Friday (April 8th) and continuing the next morning, House lawmakers attached dead or dying legislation to a large TxDOT reauthorization bill, creating what is affectionately known in the State Capitol as a Christmas tree, but is really a mess of a bill barely recognizable from its original form.

Original measures in the bill to address TxDOT’s governing structure would have left the number of commissioners at five and transferred some of the nominating authority away from the Governor. However this was sidetracked by an unwieldy amendment to abolish the appointed five-member commission and create 14 mini-TxDOT districts, each with an elected commissioner, and one statewide-elected commissioner. Those who think that is a good idea need merely look to the State Board of Education for a demonstration of the problems it can cause. Another measure attached to the bill on the House floor would require TxDOT to distribute all of its money to the 25 metropolitan planning organizations across the state, an event which would effectively demolish the state’s unified transportation plan.

This Christmas tree creates more government bureaucracy and newsletter fodder, while sidestepping the bigger picture: Texas is quickly running out of money to build and maintain our roads and bridges. Many of the “dysfunctional” problems of TxDOT that lawmakers are quick to point out actually stem from the legislature’s unwillingness to adequately fund our state’s road building in the first place.

Proposed measures to end diversions from the state’s road-building fund have found no champion, despite early pledges from the state’s leadership to do so. Other measures to increase or index the stagnant statewide 20 cent-per-gallon gas tax have fallen by the wayside, and have been replaced by the potential for a gas tax increase only in certain urban counties. And a proposal to study the possibility of a vehicle-miles-traveled tax – a true road user fee – didn’t make it out of committee.

According to the 2030 Committee, a group charged with determining the amount of money Texas must invest in our roads and bridges over the next 20 years to maintain adequate maintenance and safety levels, Texas will need a total of $315 billion, or $14.3 billion total investment each year. However, TxDOT along with the local Metropolitan Planning Organizations estimate they will only have $158 billion in revenues over the next 20 years.

In order to fill this expected gap, Texans and our lawmakers must roll up our sleeves, tighten our belts, and commit to finding sustainable solutions to funding our road infrastructure and making room for the nearly 1,200 people moving to Texas every day. Keeping good jobs in this State and recruiting new ones depends on our ability to provide a comprehensive, efficient statewide transportation system.

Lawmakers have voiced their disdain for TxDOT’s past mistakes, and shown they are willing and able to take drastic steps to rein in this agency. However, creating an unwieldy, monstrous bureaucracy is exactly not what Texans want and does nothing to solve our road funding crisis. It’s time now for lawmakers to act in the best interest of the whole state and help create an agency that is accountable to Texans, allocates our precious transportation dollars equitably, and continues to help build Texas’ economy through better and safer roads.