by BRANDI GRISSOM and BECCA AARONSON
The Texas Tribune
Consider it a do-over. The House today tentatively approved the Texas Department of Transportation Sunset bill, the measure that last year sent lawmakers into a surprise special session.
This time, though, much of the controversy over toll roads, the Trans-Texas Corridor and local option gas taxes has dissipated. Though there were more than 200 pages of amendments, debate over the bill was less heated than in 2009. The major components of the TxDOT bill this year — mostly items recommended by the Sunset Advisory Commission — include requiring a 20-year statewide transportation plan, creating an inspector general’s office in the department, and hiring a chief financial officer to oversee finances at TxDOT.
When the sun sets on a state agency, it will shut down unless the Legislature passes a bill to renew its functions. The oversight process gives legislators an opportunity to consider recommendations made by the commission, and change the way an agency works. A Sunset bill like TxDOT’s must pass — eventually — or the agency goes away.
Two years ago, legislators put TxDOT in jeopardy when the House and Senate sparred over whether local governments should be able to hold elections and allow voters to decide whether to increase gas taxes for transportation funding. The Senate wanted the measure. The House hated it. And on the final day of the legislative session, the House adjourned in protest without approving the TxDOT sunset bill. That triggered a special legislative session to pass a bare-bones Sunset bill that allowed TxDOT to continue its operations.
The bill in the House today is a true Sunset bill that addresses the oversight and administration of the agency. And though there was less angst over the measure this year, lawmakers in the House were still a little leery, taking opportunities to make known that they want nothing to do with the much-maligned and since-abandoned Trans-Texas Corridor. That plan, championed in 2002 by Gov. Rick Perry and the late former TxDOT chairman Ric Williamson, would have created a 4,000-mile network of highways, rail and utility lines. It was to be funded by private investors and built and expanded as demand warranted. The plan generated stiff public resistance, and even Perry gave up the idea.
“I am not reviving it in any way shape or form,” state Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, R-Irving, author of the TxDOT bill, assured the chamber. “I have no desire to revive the Trans-Texas Corridor.”
Lingering distrust of TxDOT that has permeated past transportation debates showed through today in some of the amendments adopted on the floor.
By striking two words — “and programs” — an amendment by Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, would prevent TxDOT from lobbying support from the federal government for projects like the Trans-Texas Corridor in the future. Kolkhorst reminded legislators of their previous conflict with TxDOT: “We were trying to, as a body, debate whether or not the Trans-Texas Corridor was something that we wanted to do… but at the same time we were getting push from DC,” because of efforts by TxDOT to rally support.
Afraid the amendment might prevent TxDOT from lobbying the federal government for programs like bridge restoration and other necessary activities, Rep. Larry Phillips, R-Sherman, suggested the language of the amendment, which passed, be reviewed in conference. “I’m not against what you’re trying to do, I just want to make sure we don’t tie their hands with the nomenclature that we use,” said Phillips.
