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AUSTIN — Rep. Glenn Rogers said Thursday his Cross Timbers water bill “apparently has died in the Senate” after reaching the upper chamber with scant time before Monday’s session adjournment.
He also was not optimistic Gov. Greg Abbott will add House Bill 5406 to the call for an expected special session on school vouchers.
“We’re going to continue to try to get on the call,” Rogers, R-Graford, told reporters in a Zoom call. “And if not, we’ll file it next session. … There’s a lot of politics in terms of getting on the call. What I don’t want is for it to be viewed as a lever for vouchers.”
Rogers and other rural Republicans oppose the public school vouchers.
If the governor does not place the bill on the call, Rogers said he will spend the interim before the 2025 session hosting town halls and visiting civic organizations.
He’ll also, of course, spend the interim asking voters to send him to the 89th Legislative Session in 2025.
Rogers said he also will line up a Senate companion bill next time, with a Senate sponsor.
The Cross Timbers Regional Utility Authority, created under HB 5406, would combine Parker, Palo Pinto and Stephens counties for water and infrastructure projects.
Those could include lake building, such as the proposed Turkey Peak Reservoir in the middle county.
Drainage control and flood mitigation also are included in the Authority’s goals, as are water and wastewater treatment plants and pipelines.
Rogers also brought up an option to pipe water into the area from the Tarrant Regional Water District, which owns four North Central Texas lakes including nearby Bridgeport and Eagle Mountain.
Having a three-county voice, the bill anticipates, would enhance the prospects of securing low-interest loans from the Texas Water Development Board
Senate Bill 28, which has been blessed by the governor and leadership in both chambers, would send $32 billion to the state board to fund water projects.
Rogers said more than 35 city councils, commissioners courts and other entities had signed letters of support or resolutions backing his three-county bill.
The measure’s backdrop, he noted, is the roughly 1,000 people moving to Texas daily. That motivation is in tandem with 1,800 wells being dug in Parker County alone each year — more and more of those coming up dusters.
But getting the bill written, pushed through House committees and on to the Senate — and its committees — was just too much to do in the 140-day session.
“It’s very difficult for something as significant and important and large as this is, to get it done in one session,” he said.
Timing was a challenge from the start of the session, which began Jan. 10 and rolled along as Rogers, local water planners and elected officials designed the bill.
The measure at one point was written to include at least five counties. Its governing board evolved from a core of the district that owns Lake Palo Pinto to appointees from the three final counties plus Mineral Wells, which owns that lake.
The bill specifies those board members cannot be elected officials or employees of the appointing entities.
By the time all that was hashed out, the nature of the bill required a 30-day notice before it could be formally filed. That placed the starting gun on April 21.
Once filed, Cross Timbers went through the House Natural Resources Committee fairly fast, reaching the Local and Consent Committee on May 2.
Four days later, though, a point of order raised by an Arlington Republican who said people in Rogers’ district had complained to him, temporarily sunk the bill.
“He says (he) had calls from my district,” Rogers said. “If I had calls from Tony Tinderholt’s district, the next thing I would have done is to have called him.”
The Weatherford Democrat sent Tinderholt’s office an open records request for records indicating who had contacted his office. He replied with a one-paragraph introduction to the House Committee report on HB 5406, which the newspaper did not request.
“There’s a lot of politics in this opposition,” Rogers said on the call. “There are people out there that want to oppose anything and everything. I don’t want to speculate on who that is.”
One inaccuracy the Graford lawmaker said reached him had to do with the Cross Timbers governing board. Critics did not want to see city council members or county commissioners in board seats.
“That’s not what the bill says,” he said. “No one on this board can hold a representative position. … It clearly says they can’t be elected officials.”
The board will have three members each from Parker and Palo Pinto counties, one from Stephens County and two from Mineral Wells.
Rogers also shot down another false criticism when asked if HB 5406’s eminent domain authority could affect existing wells.
“No. It’s a very simple answer — no,” he said.
He also said the authority’s limited eminent domain authority would be necessary if the pipeline option were taken.
“It’s needed in case we move (water) and there would be a pipeline from Tarrant Regional Water District,” Rogers said. “There’ll be ways to bring water and bring water resources into this district apart from this.”
