84th Texas Legislature Regular Session update, December 1, 2014

Legislators must have been thinking about traveling over the holidays, because most of the environment-oriented prefiled bills were about transportation (fuel tax, vehicle registration fees, and–notably–unprotected road users such as cyclists and pedestrians). The exception relates to storage of hazardous chemicals. In all, seven environmental bills were filed last week.

House Bills

HB 383: Relating to unprotected road users; providing penalties; creating an offense.
HB 392: Relating to authorizing an optional county fee for vehicle registration to fund certain transportation projects.
HB 395: Relating to the rates of the state motor fuel taxes and to the use of additional revenue derived from those taxes; increasing the rates of certain taxes.
HB 399: Relating to taxes wholly or partly deposited to the credit of the state highway fund; increasing the rates of the gasoline and diesel fuel taxes and authorizing the increase or decrease of those rates in subsequent years.
HB 401: Relating to certain fees deposited to the credit of the state highway fund; increasing motor vehicle registration fees.
HB 417: Relating to information regarding the storage of certain hazardous chemicals; providing penalties.
HJR 48: Proposing a constitutional amendment limiting the permissible uses of the state highway fund, including further limiting the use of additional tax and fee revenue attributable to changes to certain state taxes and fees, to increase revenue for nontolled public highway purposes.