Speaker 1: This week's episode of the trip Cast is sponsored by
Speaker 1: Water Grows. All Right, hello, and welcome to the Texas
Speaker 1: Tribune trip Cast for January twenty eighth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: I am Matthew Watkins, Editor in chief of the Texas Tribune.
Speaker 1: We are joined as usual by Eleanor Klibanoff, whose campaign
Speaker 1: continues to change the name of the trib Cast to
Speaker 1: the clib Cast.
Speaker 2: I would say it's my campaign. I would say it's
Speaker 2: the people's campaign. You know, it's a one party, one
Speaker 2: platform issue, all right.
Speaker 1: Well, and one supporter too, one supporter. And we have
Speaker 1: James Barragon, whose weekend was just ruined by the announcement
Speaker 1: of the State of the State speech on Sunday.
Speaker 3: Oh, not ruined. I'm fine, all right.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, if you like to work on your weekends, that's.
Speaker 3: Look on the positive side, that's the day and a
Speaker 3: half to.
Speaker 4: Enjoy, all right.
Speaker 1: So today we will be endeavoring to convince James to
Speaker 1: get excited about water policy. But before that, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk a little little bit about what's happened in
Speaker 1: the news this week. We have, you know, talked in
Speaker 1: previous episodes about you know, the obviously the Dustin Burrows's
Speaker 1: election to speaker, but also the campaign against him, one
Speaker 1: of which was around, you know, the effort to get
Speaker 1: rid of democratic committee chairs in the Texas House. It
Speaker 1: appears as though the hardline conservatives pushing for that may
Speaker 1: have lost the speakers race, but at least one on
Speaker 1: this issue that they've been pursuing for multiple legislative sessions.
Speaker 1: James tell us a little bit about what happened with
Speaker 1: the rules recently.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, surprising that you put it that way, because
Speaker 3: I think if you ask them, they would not see
Speaker 3: themselves as big winners. In fact, they said that Democrats
Speaker 3: have more power, which I think realistically and like objectively,
Speaker 3: that is not true. In the rules, it says that
Speaker 3: the majority party will hold committee chairmanships and the minority
Speaker 3: party will have vice chairmanships, so that effectively strips Democrats
Speaker 3: from being allowed to run committees, which is exactly what
Speaker 3: they wanted. Now, I think we have to be intellectually
Speaker 3: honest about this that it's one of the things that
Speaker 3: they wanted. It's the big thing that they rallied around,
Speaker 3: But there are a bunch of other things that those
Speaker 3: hardline conservatives wanted that they did not get, which is
Speaker 3: what they are sort of yelling about. And they're what
Speaker 3: they're making a big fuss about. Democrats and the Speaker.
Speaker 3: Burrows's Republican coalition are saying, hey, like, we gave you
Speaker 3: guys exactly what you wanted. The Democrat chairs are gone,
Speaker 3: and the hardline Conservatives are saying, well, that's just one thing.
Speaker 3: And I've just pulled up the contract with Texas, which
Speaker 3: is what they basically are saying, that they are following.
Speaker 4: The contract to Texas. Is what the kind of more.
Speaker 3: It's like the pledge that they came up with for
Speaker 3: the Conservatives, yeah, which Cook had signed and said, Cook
Speaker 3: being David Cook of Mansfield, the other candidate for speaker
Speaker 3: who lost obviously. But you know, just going down the
Speaker 3: list here, you only still support for speakership from Republican members.
Speaker 3: Obviously neither of them did that. And the practice of
Speaker 3: awarding Democrats with committee chairmanship, that's high, that's number two,
Speaker 3: and Burrows has done that. And sure all GOP legislative
Speaker 3: priorities receive a floor vote before any Democrat bills that
Speaker 3: has not been codified in the rules. Replace the current
Speaker 3: liberal these are their words. Liberal parliamentarians with staff committed
Speaker 3: to only offering advice on adherence to House rules, not
Speaker 3: advancing their personal ideology. They're referring to Hugh Brady, a
Speaker 3: Democrat who was a parliamentarian and he is gone. Now
Speaker 3: there is only one parliamentarian.
Speaker 2: Which is the parliamentarian. For people who don't.
Speaker 3: Know, parliamentariy basically interprets the rules and make sure the
Speaker 3: make sure makes sure that the whatever body it is
Speaker 3: is running according to the rules. And so there's a
Speaker 3: whole list of these, but you can see that there
Speaker 3: is like differences here right the The next one that
Speaker 3: I see is limiting the speaker to two terms to
Speaker 3: reduce their power over individual members. That also is not
Speaker 3: in the rules. And so what the hardliners wanted to
Speaker 3: do this week and last week and the rules is
Speaker 3: to put these things in to codify them, to say
Speaker 3: you were going to commit to the entire contract with Texas.
Speaker 3: The thing is that Burrows never committed to those things,
Speaker 3: and so they can say, but this is the contract
Speaker 3: that we had committed to. Burrows never committed to. So
Speaker 3: there's like truth in both spaces. But I think overall
Speaker 3: to your initial question is like, what are we going
Speaker 3: to see. I think we have to be again intellectually
Speaker 3: honest and say there's going to be a more conservative
Speaker 3: session no matter which way you slice it.
Speaker 1: Well, James, I mean we're sort of a broken record
Speaker 1: on this, but you have continuously made the point on
Speaker 1: this podcast that this is less about ideal ideology and
Speaker 1: more about power, right, And you know, I think we
Speaker 1: have to ask the question, is this situation where if
Speaker 1: I wonder if Burrows is asking this question too, Like,
Speaker 1: if he gives this group what they want on one thing,
Speaker 1: are they just going to start then saying I want
Speaker 1: this instead, you know? And if the point is to
Speaker 1: be kind of going after this speaker and they seem
Speaker 1: kind of committed to doing that throughout this legislative session,
Speaker 1: is is this a sort of impossible battle to win
Speaker 1: in terms of getting the support and getting people to say,
Speaker 1: you know, be happy with his speakership this session?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: I am not in Burrows' head, so I wouldn't know.
Speaker 3: But what we've seen with previous speakers is they said
Speaker 3: Joe Strauss is too liberal and he only gives us
Speaker 3: a little bit of red meat so that some members
Speaker 3: can go back to their districts and say they passed
Speaker 3: conservative legislation and then the rest of us get shut out.
Speaker 3: So then Straus steps down. Bonnin comes in, he's clearly
Speaker 3: a more conservative speaker. He goes further to the right,
Speaker 3: and then they say this guy's not conservative enough. Then
Speaker 3: he goes down. Feelim comes in, he's more conservative, passes
Speaker 3: more conservative legislation and they say he is not conservative enough.
Speaker 3: Comes in and they're saying he's not conservative enough. Each
Speaker 3: of these guys has gone consistently more and more conservative,
Speaker 3: and it's just never enough for the hard right. That
Speaker 3: is their prerogative and that is what they say their
Speaker 3: voters come to represent. But they will keep fighting that
Speaker 3: fight until the cows come home.
Speaker 1: I think, well, it's also interesting, as you have listed
Speaker 1: this kind of progression of more conservative speakers, that faction
Speaker 1: that's been unhappy with that leadership in the hard right
Speaker 1: has grown during that time as well. You know, so
Speaker 1: kind of an interesting dynamic there what's gone.
Speaker 3: Through waves, hasn't it like the Freedom Caucus was, you know,
Speaker 3: they they certainly were very active in twenty seventeen, and
Speaker 3: then they kind of waned, I think thanks to Speaker
Speaker 3: Bondon who really managed the Chamber and the inter chamber relationships. Well,
Speaker 3: and then they've popped back up. I don't know. I
Speaker 3: think it's come and gone. But certainly this year there
Speaker 3: are more people, more lawmakers aligned with that view. Okay,
Speaker 3: that's for multiple reasons.
Speaker 1: Quickly, before we move on what impact on governing? Does
Speaker 1: not having democratic chairs have this legislative session?
Speaker 4: If any?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think the conservatives are right. Democrats leading
Speaker 3: committees obviously helps Democrats. You think about things, and I've
Speaker 3: come up with a few examples. You think about in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one, Herald Dunton leading public education in the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one second special Session, he refused to advance
Speaker 3: legislation that restricted transgender student athletes, and there was a
Speaker 3: lot of pressure coming from the Lieutenant governor to pass that.
Speaker 3: That was SB two in that special session, clearly a
Speaker 3: priority bill. That bill got killed in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: You think about Chairman Pancho Navarrees in twenty nineteen saying
Speaker 3: there wouldn't be a hearing on open Caerry legislation because
Speaker 3: some gun rights activists had gone and bothered lawmakers at
Speaker 3: their homes, which is pretty reprehensible, but Pancho says, no
Speaker 3: more of that and it's done. Obviously, that legislation later passed,
Speaker 3: but it was blocked. You think of people like Missus
Speaker 3: t and Fronie Thompson and Houston in twenty nineteen leading
Speaker 3: public at public education, I'm sorry, public health, and so
Speaker 3: then the abortional legislation stops going to public health and
Speaker 3: starts going to the state affairs. I mean, there clearly
Speaker 3: is a stopper, and this is the way representative government works, right,
Speaker 3: so I think there will be an impact. I think
Speaker 3: to ignore these concerns that the Conservatives are saying is
Speaker 3: to not be honest about this. But it's also fair
Speaker 3: to say that this is representative government and just because
Speaker 3: they're the minority government doesn't mean that they should be
Speaker 3: completely shut out, which is I think what Borrows is
Speaker 3: trying to get out with these vice chairs and these
Speaker 3: sub committees, which will have to wait and see what
Speaker 3: impact they actually have. But the Conservatives are obviously concerned
Speaker 3: about that because they think that's a run around. No
Speaker 3: charite for Democrats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ultimately, I mean, when you're a committee chair, you
Speaker 1: know every bill has to go through a committee in
Speaker 1: the House for it reaches the full floor. When your
Speaker 1: committee chair you can control what comes up for a hearing.
Speaker 1: A lot of bills get rewritten in committee, so there
Speaker 1: is a considerable amount of power there for sure. All Right,
Speaker 1: I want to talk next about both chambers filing their
Speaker 1: baseline budgets for the legislative session.
Speaker 3: This is Matthew's favorite day of the year.
Speaker 1: I do you know again, the budget the most important
Speaker 1: bill of the session every year, even though it maybe
Speaker 1: doesn't cause as much excitement as a lot of the
Speaker 1: other ones. Eleanor what were the highlights that you saw?
Speaker 2: Well, I will say and just a brief anecdote to
Speaker 2: get inside the mind of Matthew Watkins. Two years ago
Speaker 2: when we were at this point, I remember our former
Speaker 2: colleague Karen Brooks Harper came to me and was like,
Speaker 2: Matthew has asked me to cover the budget. And I
Speaker 2: was like, it's like when a cat brings you a
Speaker 2: mouse as a present and you're like, thank you, I
Speaker 2: don't want that, but I know it came with love.
Speaker 2: You love the budget. Karen actually does love the budget.
Speaker 2: Also a nerd, I would say, you know, the budget
Speaker 2: is the only thing the Texas Ledges has to pass.
Speaker 2: They could pass that, they could go home it's an idea.
Speaker 2: I think they should consider it. But assuming they're not
Speaker 2: going to do that. I mean, the budget has, like
Speaker 2: all the high priority items, I think a lot of
Speaker 2: it was not a huge surprise. They are, as how
Speaker 2: Speaker Boroughs said, substantially identical between the House and the Senate. Obviously,
Speaker 2: the working out the details is what you know, will
Speaker 2: take up most of the session. I think the big
Speaker 2: thing we were seeing is, you know, a big increase
Speaker 2: in funding for vouchers. You know, this has obviously been
Speaker 2: a Conservative priority for a long time. Seems like they've
Speaker 2: got the votes this session, and this increase in funding
Speaker 2: definitely makes it seem like, you know, they don't want
Speaker 2: to take a half step into vouchers, they want to
Speaker 2: run into that pretty significantly. And then also as sort
Speaker 2: of promised funding increases for public education to go into
Speaker 2: that increases for teachers rural teachers, which we should say
Speaker 2: the teacher groups feel like is not is still not enough.
Speaker 2: So figure out how to balance those two things. The
Speaker 2: one thing I will say, in my universe, in the
Speaker 2: health world, that's like a very big deal, a very
Speaker 2: small line item comparably to some of these big numbers.
Speaker 2: But the Texas Health and Human Services Commission has asked
Speaker 2: for three hundred million dollars to improve their Medicaid enrollment system,
Speaker 2: which is in the health world a huge deal. We've
Speaker 2: written a decent amount about that, and so that made
Speaker 2: it into both budgets, and I think people are pretty
Speaker 2: optimistic that that's going to happen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: I think two things you look for in those base budgets,
Speaker 1: which can very much change and will change over the
Speaker 1: coming months, are where this is there agreement right, Where
Speaker 1: do they have similar amounts of money, Where are their
Speaker 1: difference is, and how does that change compared to previous years.
Speaker 1: So we saw both both chambers two point five billion
Speaker 1: dollars to spend on broadband expansion in the state, two
Speaker 1: point five billion dollars to spend on water infrastructure we'll
Speaker 1: talk more about that later, five billion dollars on the grid,
Speaker 1: three point five billion dollars to go toward property taxes,
Speaker 1: and as you mentioned, a billion dollars for school vouchers,
Speaker 1: which is double what was in the budget last session
Speaker 1: five hundred million dollars. We also saw a voucher bill
Speaker 1: get filed in the Senate that kind of laid out
Speaker 1: at least the Senates proposal for what that would be. Again,
Speaker 1: we're talking about spending double the amount of money, the
Speaker 1: proposal being ten thousand dollars to give you know, basically
Speaker 1: parents who want to send their kids to private school,
Speaker 1: maybe around two thousand dollars for parents who are going
Speaker 1: to homeschool their kids, things like that. They would prioritize
Speaker 1: low income children and kids with disabilities in that range.
Speaker 1: When you talk about ten thousand dollars per student, you're
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, funding for around one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: students in that realm. Worth noting, there's an estimated two
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety thousand private school students in Texas right now.
Speaker 1: So even though it is a a significant increase in
Speaker 1: what they wanted to spend last year, it's still not
Speaker 1: enough to cover the students who are already in Texas
Speaker 1: public schools. So I think one question that will come
Speaker 1: up if that is indeed how much they end up spending,
Speaker 1: is will there then be immediate demand to spend more
Speaker 1: in upcoming sessions from there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's definitely. Like, I mean, obviously, through
Speaker 2: as we've talked about previous episodes like Strategic Winning of
Speaker 2: certain seats, Like these policies have the numbers. It seems
Speaker 2: like it seems like Voucher's is going to happen this session.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean that, Like the way the bill is
Speaker 2: written today is like everyone agrees, we all shake hands, and.
Speaker 3: We go home.
Speaker 2: Like there's a lot of this to sort out, and
Speaker 2: you know, Texas legislators are not overly fond of spending money,
Speaker 2: so you know, the more expensive this starts to look,
Speaker 2: obviously it's still going to get the support, but there
Speaker 2: might be sort.
Speaker 3: Of more guards on the borders, and they're very happy.
Speaker 2: Actually there's a lot of things they want to spend
Speaker 2: money on.
Speaker 3: But I think that the agreement on the one billion
Speaker 3: dollars is huge too. I was just trying to look
Speaker 3: up here the tweet from the governor where he sort
Speaker 3: of tweeted out approvingly of the billion dollar budget, and
Speaker 3: he said something like, I can't find the tweet right now,
Speaker 3: but like, you know, this is a great start, and
Speaker 3: I think the indication that the Senate and the House
Speaker 3: are both out of billion dollars shows you that the
Speaker 3: governor is also involved in sort of the settling on
Speaker 3: that number. So I'm not sure that is actually going
Speaker 3: to change.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how does this bode for I mean there is
Speaker 1: I took notice about how much agreement there was on
Speaker 1: these big ticket items. How much does this bode for
Speaker 1: the ability of the Speaker and the Lieutenant Governor to
Speaker 1: get along this legislative session.
Speaker 4: Well, go for it.
Speaker 3: I found it interesting. Obviously, Lieutenant Governor Patrick was very
Speaker 3: critical or perhaps not critical. Yeah, I mean he was
Speaker 3: critical at Burroughs, he was critical at Burrows, and he
Speaker 3: was clearly very supportive of Cook saying that he was
Speaker 3: the House GOP Caucus nominee. Right, But in the aftermath
Speaker 3: of the action, I've sort of seen like him leaving
Speaker 3: the door open and saying like Burrows will have the
Speaker 3: opportunity to prove that he is going to be the
Speaker 3: most conservative speaker. And Burrows, i think, compared to Feelin,
Speaker 3: is like a player, and he is like he knows
Speaker 3: the chamber, he knows the inter chamber relationships. He's been
Speaker 3: involved in a lot of these negotiations. I think he's
Speaker 3: going to be a lot more forceful and perhaps tactful
Speaker 3: and how he deals both handling interchamber inter chamber battles
Speaker 3: and intra chamber battles, So I'm kind of curious to
Speaker 3: see how that plays out. The litank Nuver has kind
Speaker 3: of backed off a little bit, I think yeah.
Speaker 2: And also, I mean last session, obviously there was a
Speaker 2: great discord between perhaps the three, the big three, and
Speaker 2: you know, I think Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has shown
Speaker 2: a willingness to sort of, you know, hold out and
Speaker 2: not necessarily play nice with the other chamber. But also,
Speaker 2: as he has noted, you know, his chamber has repeatedly
Speaker 2: passed a lot of these top priority legislations and a
Speaker 2: top parity legislation and it gets stalled out in the House.
Speaker 2: And so you know, is it perhaps in his best
Speaker 2: interest to try to play nice with the House speaker
Speaker 2: when there is widespread agreement on a lot of this.
Speaker 3: I just would say yes. And looking ahead, State of
Speaker 3: the State address is on Sunday. As you previously mentioned,
Speaker 3: the Governor is going to come out with his emergency items.
Speaker 3: Lieutenant Governor Patrick has said, we've got to go, we've
Speaker 3: got to get moving on these things. And the House
Speaker 3: is known typically for rolling a little bit slower, rolling
Speaker 3: a little bit slower, and so it'll be curious to
Speaker 3: see once the Senate because I have no doubt that
Speaker 3: the Senate will hit the ground running and get going
Speaker 3: on a bunch of these things. How quickly the House
Speaker 3: will move, And I think if the House doesn't move
Speaker 3: as quickly as the Lieutenant Governor wants it, then you
Speaker 3: might see some of this tension start to build up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think it's probably safe to assume
Speaker 1: that school vouchers will be an emergency item which will
Speaker 1: allow the legislature to move more quickly. The I believe
Speaker 1: as we are recording this, the Senate is having a
Speaker 1: hearing on the bill, and I you know, once that
Speaker 1: speech happens on Friday and I mean Sunday and it
Speaker 1: is declared an emergency item, the Senate I would expect,
Speaker 1: will move, you know, in early February to pass that bill.
Speaker 1: So we could be in a situation where, you know,
Speaker 1: this this aspect of the legislature is decided quite quickly.
Speaker 1: So James, as already mentioned, on Sunday, you will be
Speaker 1: doing your favorite Sunday activity of covering.
Speaker 3: You were Lord's Days people.
Speaker 2: You are jubilant.
Speaker 4: What else do you expect from that? What are you
Speaker 4: watching for?
Speaker 3: I'm curious to see what we do with border stuff. Obviously,
Speaker 3: Republicans have a partner now in the federal government, but
Speaker 3: there's still a lot of money dedicated in the budget
Speaker 3: for border security and immigration enforcement, so I wonder what
Speaker 3: will happen there. I'm also curious there's always been this
Speaker 3: ongoing issue of bail reform and I think election integrity.
Speaker 3: I don't have a whole lot of insight into the governor,
Speaker 3: but yeah, I'm curious about those issues because they've been
Speaker 3: things that he's been very supportive of in the past.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I'm kind of curious because there's been so
Speaker 3: much focus on vouchers that I wonder what else he's
Speaker 3: sort of been thinking about. And also, one more thing,
Speaker 3: we talk about this sort of line that the governor
Speaker 3: walks between, you know, traditional Republicans who are more business
Speaker 3: friendly and think about things like infrastructure, which I know
Speaker 3: we're going to talk about next, and the social conservatives
Speaker 3: who want to fight a lot about LGBT rights and
Speaker 3: abortion and all these things. Right, So I wonder what
Speaker 3: he will signal in sort of his attempt to walk
Speaker 3: that line.
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of wanting to know what people are thinking,
Speaker 1: we would also like to know what our audience is thinking.
Speaker 1: We were interested in possibly answering some questions or topic
Speaker 1: discussing topics that people send in. So if you have
Speaker 1: any comments, questions, thoughts for the trip cast, things you'd
Speaker 1: like us to discuss, shoot us an email trip Cast
Speaker 1: at Texastribune dot org. If you happen to be the
Speaker 1: governor and you're listening, you know you were also welcome.
Speaker 3: You are welcome in boxes invited too.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In fact, we would give you the you know, the
Speaker 2: welcome of the century.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you also don't have to be the governor,
Speaker 1: so so right in all right, Well, we are going
Speaker 1: to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors.
Speaker 4: Eleanor is going.
Speaker 1: To hop off because she has another speaking engagement, but
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about water after that. See you later, Eleanor,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Water grows our food economy and future.
Speaker 1: Discover how Texas farmers make strides to make water last
Speaker 1: for Texans now and for generations to come more at
Speaker 1: Water Grows dot Org. Okay, Texas summers might seem hot
Speaker 1: and dry now, but the worst it was even worse
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties. Between nineteen forty nine and nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty seven, Texas received between thirty percent and fifty percent
Speaker 1: less rainfall as during normal years. The drought wiped out
Speaker 1: half of the state's farming industry. More than a thousand
Speaker 1: cities and communities had to implement water use restriction restrictions
Speaker 1: during that time. It's now referred to as the drought
Speaker 1: of record in Texas, and Texas uses that time as
Speaker 1: a benchmark to measure the sufficiency of its water infrastructure
Speaker 1: moving forward. Jeremy Maser, who is our guest right now,
Speaker 1: director of Natural Resources and Infrastructure Policy at the Texas
Speaker 1: twenty thirty six think tank, recently assessed that readiness and
Speaker 1: the results were not encouraging, at least from my eye.
Speaker 1: Jeremy is our guest. Welcome, Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 5: Matthew James, thank you so much for having me here.
Speaker 5: It's great to be here this morning.
Speaker 1: Right, so great to have you. Let's talk about this
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties type drought situation, because you wrote a report
Speaker 1: on this, and you led the report basically saying that
Speaker 1: we could potentially see some major damage we see another
Speaker 1: drought like that in the future, lay out for us
Speaker 1: that scenario, that sort of worst case scenario we could face.
Speaker 3: So we Texas.
Speaker 5: Twenty thirty six, we released a report assessing Texas water
Speaker 5: infrastructure needs and those basically fall into two buckets.
Speaker 3: First, we need to expand.
Speaker 5: Our water supply portfolio for drought prone and growing state.
Speaker 5: We can talk more about this later, but droughts are
Speaker 5: part of the Texas experience. If you've been here for
Speaker 5: a year, ten years, a century, you know we're drought
Speaker 5: proman state. The second bucket of challenges we face relates
Speaker 5: to the issues of aging, deteriorating drinking water and waste
Speaker 5: water systems. And thanks of the Texas Tribune, you guys
Speaker 5: have covered a lot of stories across the state from
Speaker 5: East Texas to West Texas, even in the Valley of aging,
Speaker 5: deteriorating systems that are failing, falling apart and leaking and
Speaker 5: really becoming liabilities to the communities that they serve. But
Speaker 5: starting with a drought issue and the need to expand
Speaker 5: our water supplies. So in the nineteen fifties, we had
Speaker 5: this drought of record, and that was the worst recorded drought.
Speaker 1: It's worse since like eighteen ninety five or something like that.
Speaker 1: I started recording, Yeah, we started.
Speaker 5: Recording in eighteen ninety fourteen ninety five year righte. And
Speaker 5: there were droughts around World War One and the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 5: which is with the Dutch dust Bowl, But the nineteen
Speaker 5: fifties drought was pretty unique in terms of its duration
Speaker 5: and its severity. And what was remarkablet that drought It
Speaker 5: really prompted two things to start happening in Texas. First,
Speaker 5: it began our campaign of water planning and aggressively developing
Speaker 5: more water supplies, principally water wells and reservoirs. But the
Speaker 5: nineteen fifties drought also began this huge economic and cultural
Speaker 5: shift in the Texas where we became we started becoming
Speaker 5: less of an rural agrarian state, and a lot of
Speaker 5: people started moving towards them the cities. And so I
Speaker 5: think you know cities where the more majority of people
Speaker 5: live today. That trend started during the drive up record
Speaker 5: of the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1: Right And so you, like you said, you identified kind
Speaker 1: of two different needs that the state has in order
Speaker 1: to meet this. One is sort of finding new water
Speaker 1: supply in the state. The other is fixing those broken
Speaker 1: water and wastewater systems. The total that you put together,
Speaker 1: I believe in this report or your team put together
Speaker 1: is that we in order to do those two things
Speaker 1: sufficiently to be prepared for a nineteen fifties type drought,
Speaker 1: we would need to spend one hundred and fifty four
Speaker 1: billion dollars over the next fifty years.
Speaker 6: That's right, Matthew. What we did is we looked at
Speaker 6: the cost.
Speaker 5: Estimates in the state Water Plan as well as those
Speaker 5: from the EPA on how much needs to be spent
Speaker 5: over the next couple decades for fixing and rehabilitating, our aging,
Speaker 5: deciorating drinking water and wastewater systems. And when we adjusted
Speaker 5: those numbers, those cost estimates for inflation, we see that
Speaker 5: the state is going to need to spend at least
Speaker 5: one hundred and fifty four billion dollars over the next
Speaker 5: half centuries on water infrastructure. But the good news is
Speaker 5: we have some existing programs that are already working to
Speaker 5: provide financial assistance, such as the Texas Water Fund approved
Speaker 5: by voters and Propositions six last year, the State Water
Speaker 5: Implementation Fund for Texas that voters approved eleven years ago.
Speaker 5: But these existing funds are only going to be able
Speaker 5: to provide according to estimates, about forty to forty five
Speaker 5: billion dollars worth of long term financial assistance. Say that
Speaker 5: emergan about forty to forty five billion dollars in the
Speaker 5: long run of financial assistance, And so we're seeing that
Speaker 5: there's going to be a big financial assistance funding gap
Speaker 5: to just north of one hundred and ten billion dollars
Speaker 5: of what the state really needs to pony up to
Speaker 5: invest in order to fix our waterf structured challenges.
Speaker 4: How did we get so far behind? Here? Is it?
Speaker 1: I mean, Texas obviously a place that's growing a lot.
Speaker 1: How much is this growth, how much of it is
Speaker 1: under investment in the past. What's what put us in
Speaker 1: this position in twenty twenty?
Speaker 3: And are we an out are we in an outlier
Speaker 3: compared to other states?
Speaker 5: Well, I you know other I think what's unique about
Speaker 5: Texas is, you know, unlike other states such as Florida,
Speaker 5: New York, you know, Illinois, they really don't have drought
Speaker 5: and water supply issues like we do.
Speaker 6: I think, you know, our water supply.
Speaker 5: Challenges are certainly analogous to what's being seen in the
Speaker 5: desert southwest with California, Arizona, and New Mexico, which is
Speaker 5: which is in the in the throes of actually a
Speaker 5: mega drought right now. But I think also the issues
Speaker 5: that we have with ageing, deteriorating drinking water and wastewater systems,
Speaker 5: those are not just a Texas problem. I mean those
Speaker 5: also exist in Florida, California, from from coast to coast.
Speaker 6: But Matthew, you asked, how did, how did how? How
Speaker 6: is it?
Speaker 4: How has it?
Speaker 6: Why has it come to this?
Speaker 5: And I think there are several factors that have been
Speaker 5: accelerating and aggravating our water infrastructure challenges. First, when we
Speaker 5: look at the data, such as studies we've done in
Speaker 5: partnership with the off state climatologists, we're seeing that droughts
Speaker 5: and extreme heat are accelerating the strains on our water supplies.
Speaker 5: The hotter it gets, the quicker your lakes and reservoirs
Speaker 5: dry up.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 5: You know, the less rain that we have means that
Speaker 5: there's less water in those surface water resources, but also
Speaker 5: means that we're drawing a.
Speaker 6: Lot more from our groundwater.
Speaker 5: And so what's happening with the weather has been accelerating
Speaker 5: the strains on water supplies. There's also the issue of
Speaker 5: population and economic growth. If you talk with water policy people,
Speaker 5: they're going to say there's a lot of people coming
Speaker 5: to Texas and they're not bringing water with them.
Speaker 6: That's true, but there's also.
Speaker 5: A a unique expansion in water intensive industries in Texas
Speaker 5: as part of the Texas economic miracle, where you have
Speaker 5: a growth in the energy sector, semiconductor manufacturers, data centers,
Speaker 5: just to name a few, that all have to use
Speaker 5: water resources in order to work. And the state's political
Speaker 5: economy as such is that's very attractive for these industries
Speaker 5: and businesses to move here, which is good economic growth
Speaker 5: and jobs, but that's also accelerating the strains on our
Speaker 5: water resources. And then the last issue is Matthew's you
Speaker 5: pointed to in your question. The state's financial assistance policy
Speaker 5: has been incremental over time, and so what we haven't
Speaker 5: really seen as a sustained, concerted, reliable effort to address
Speaker 5: these long term funding needs for water infrastructure.
Speaker 1: You touched a little bit on the economic impact of this,
Speaker 1: and I want to dig a little bit deeper in there.
Speaker 1: You you talk about it a little bit in your
Speaker 1: report about how a lot of the big infrastructure commercial investments,
Speaker 1: industrial investments in the state recently have been accompanied by
Speaker 1: communities where those investments have happened really, you know, taking
Speaker 1: big steps to increase their long term water supply, things
Speaker 1: like the Samsung plant north of Austin and things like that.
Speaker 1: One of the things you really talk about is that
Speaker 1: if this is felt, you know, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we've seen communities go through water crisis. Is you truck
Speaker 1: in water from other places, you get water bottles and
Speaker 1: everything like that. But what you could really see is
Speaker 1: a reluctance for companies and organizations to invest in the
Speaker 1: state if that water is not done. You say, if
Speaker 1: we see another nineteen fifties strought, we could see losses
Speaker 1: annual GDP losses of one hundred and sixty billion dollars,
Speaker 1: nearly eight hundred thousand jobs lost, and what you describe
Speaker 1: as a potential exodus from the state if we don't
Speaker 1: address these needs. What does it actually look like for
Speaker 1: Texas if we don't meet the water demand needs going forward?
Speaker 5: There's extraordinary downside risk if we fail to develop the
Speaker 5: water infrastructure that we need a lot of that's described
Speaker 5: in the report that I wrote with Texas twenty thirty six.
Speaker 3: Also, it's explored in more.
Speaker 5: Detail by a report by Gabe Collins with A Baker
Speaker 5: Institute at Rice University, who we also partnered with to
Speaker 5: explore the economic costs and benefits of water infrastructure investment,
Speaker 5: and so we know what would likely be the potential
Speaker 5: economic losses in terms of millions of jobs lost, a
Speaker 5: diaspora of people leaving the state looking for opportunity and
Speaker 5: potentially water elsewhere, and not to mention the one hundred
Speaker 5: and sixty plus billion dollars per year in GDP losses,
Speaker 5: which were comparison is worse than the economic losses observed
Speaker 5: during the COVID pandemic and the Great Recession. But there
Speaker 5: are some fascinating examples that we point to in our
Speaker 5: report of what inadequate water infrastructure has meant for other economies.
Speaker 5: Australia saw some negative growth in its GDP during the
Speaker 5: Millennial Drought between the early twenty and twenty fifteen. Same
Speaker 5: thing for Cape Town, South Africa. And there are some
Speaker 5: fascinating examples from the rest of the world of how
Speaker 5: not only you actually realize and see this economic downturn,
Speaker 5: but there's also cases of businesses and industries shutting down
Speaker 5: and not working anymore absent absent drought and reliable water
Speaker 5: supplies are increasingly becoming a part of the economic development
Speaker 5: equation in Texas. When I've been talking with state leaders,
Speaker 5: a lot of them are saying, like, Hey, we're talking
Speaker 5: with companies they want to come to Texas. They're like
Speaker 5: so many things here. The question we're getting asked is
Speaker 5: if we have enough reliable water.
Speaker 1: Right And we've seen this in some ways kind of
Speaker 1: already start to play out in regions this day. The
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about what's happening in the Rio
Speaker 1: Grand Valley.
Speaker 5: The Rio Grand Valley comes in and out of trouble
Speaker 5: almost like every two years.
Speaker 6: I mean twenty twenty two. August of that year, the
Speaker 6: water levels in.
Speaker 5: Lake Amistan and Lake Falcone were at precipitous lows, and
Speaker 5: city managers were looking at emergency measures they may have
Speaker 5: to implement in order to avoid cutting people off of water. Fortunately,
Speaker 5: a tropical depression came over, put a bunch of water
Speaker 5: in the river, saved the day for a little while.
Speaker 5: But again in twenty twenty four, low water conditions in
Speaker 5: the Rio Grand Valley have begun to precipitate some real
Speaker 5: economic consequences. Notably when a year ago the Santa Rosa
Speaker 5: sugar mill closed, and that is a business that provided
Speaker 5: you know, over five hundred jobs within the region and
Speaker 5: about five hundred million plus in regional GDP. In addition
Speaker 5: to seeing that that that farm close, were the sugar
Speaker 5: cane farm closed, we're also seeing that we're also hearing
Speaker 5: that the citrus industry is under duress due to drought conditions.
Speaker 5: And I think the Rio Grande Valley is becoming a
Speaker 5: bit of a canary in the coal mine for Texas
Speaker 5: in terms of describing what can happen, when, what will
Speaker 5: go wrong, and what economic horrors will be visited on
Speaker 5: your region if you have insufficient water supplies.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about the two quick kind of
Speaker 1: areas that need investment very quickly. One, as we already
Speaker 1: mentioned water supplies. You know this actual water you know
Speaker 1: that the state needs to draw from. You've you listed
Speaker 1: the water supply deficit as being nearly six point nine
Speaker 1: million acre feet of water. For people to understand, one
Speaker 1: acre foot serves around two to three houses per year,
Speaker 1: So if you're six point nine million acre feet short,
Speaker 1: you're talking about somewhere around like seventeen million your short
Speaker 1: the shortage being about enough to serve seventeen million houses
Speaker 1: per year. In that realm. Of course, it's more than
Speaker 1: just houses that draw from the water. It's you know,
Speaker 1: in industry and agriculture and everything like that. But what
Speaker 1: are the solutions there? I mean, obviously you need to
Speaker 1: invest money, but is that money to build reservoirs like
Speaker 1: desalination like what is what actually needs to be built
Speaker 1: and done in this state in order to get to
Speaker 1: where we need to be for that supply.
Speaker 5: So our six point nine million projected six point nine
Speaker 5: million acre foot water supply deficit comes from the most
Speaker 5: recent state water plan prepared by the Texas Water Development Board.
Speaker 5: What needs to happen is the state needs to invest
Speaker 5: in a broad, diversified water supply portfolio. And some of
Speaker 5: these projects are going to be the same types of
Speaker 5: water supply technologies they used in the Roman Empire, your
Speaker 5: groundwater wells and your reservoirs. But I think a lot
Speaker 5: of those types of easier water supply projects relatively easier
Speaker 5: are I mean, a lot of those have already been built,
Speaker 5: and so there's not a lot of easier water to develop.
Speaker 5: I think we're going to have to lean into technology
Speaker 5: innovation and water supply diversification in order to meet that
Speaker 5: six point nine million, six point nine million acre foot
Speaker 5: water supply deficit, and so we're going to be talking
Speaker 5: about greater water conservation. I think water reuse in recycling
Speaker 5: is exciting that can be done, that can expand the
Speaker 5: water supply portfolio.
Speaker 6: And we're also going to.
Speaker 5: Talk about desalination, seawater and brackish water. But also we
Speaker 5: need to have a bigger conversation about moving water from
Speaker 5: the water rich areas of the state to the areas
Speaker 5: that needed the most.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's where I think some of the politics
Speaker 1: come into play. It's not just is there support to
Speaker 1: spending this kind of money, right, It's like whenever there's
Speaker 1: an idea to build a reservoir in the state, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of landowner resistance. Whenever a company, you know,
Speaker 1: whether a city wants to pipe in water from you know,
Speaker 1: across the state, you hear a lot of concern about
Speaker 1: the local uh, you know, the people who are local
Speaker 1: there saying, you know, why are they taking water away
Speaker 1: from our community?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: Exactly how much of that is a hurdle? Do you
Speaker 1: feel like in addition to just the spending, and.
Speaker 3: Also with desalination, I mean, how effective is desalination, and
Speaker 3: is there concern from lawmakers about the efficiency of desalination,
Speaker 3: like going forward, like if you invest billions of dollars
Speaker 3: in desalination, Yeah, how efficient will that?
Speaker 5: Actually, well it's a Matthew will start with you, then
Speaker 5: James will talk about de cell and so you know,
Speaker 5: I've followed water policy and the legislature for the past
Speaker 5: twenty five years. And what's interesting is like all of
Speaker 5: those water policy fights are regional and local.
Speaker 6: They don't really break down on partisan lines.
Speaker 5: And there are some regions that are fiercely protective of
Speaker 5: their water resources for good reason. That supports the regional identity,
Speaker 5: that supports their regional economy, and the prospect of moving
Speaker 5: water from one part of the state to another is
Speaker 5: easier say it said that done. The same thing with reservoirs.
Speaker 5: I mean, there have been some reservoirs on the books
Speaker 5: for decades that have still not been built, but are
Speaker 5: are just politically challenging to develop, owing two concerns about
Speaker 5: water supply development or even condemning condemning that land. James,
Speaker 5: you asked about desalination and what are what are legislators
Speaker 5: thinking about desalination? I would say that Over the past
Speaker 5: twenty years, there has been a growing crescendo of interest
Speaker 5: in dec salnation among within within the within the House,
Speaker 5: incentate leaders in the legislature. Desalination has the benefit of
Speaker 5: being a little bit more drought proof. There's I mean,
Speaker 5: unless a meteor hits it, there's always gonna be water
Speaker 5: in the Gulf of Mexico, which is a good thing.
Speaker 5: But it's always been expensive to do in energy intensive
Speaker 5: and so I think the the load demands of desalination
Speaker 5: plants are something that need to be taken into consideration,
Speaker 5: especially as we have increasing load demands across our electric grid,
Speaker 5: as our economy and population continues to grow. There is opportunity,
Speaker 5: there is promise in desalination. Will it be the panacea
Speaker 5: or silver bullet that solves every region's problems? That that
Speaker 5: probably We're probably not at the scale and position to
Speaker 5: do that yet, But desalination is going to be playing
Speaker 5: more of a robust part in contributing to a water
Speaker 5: supply portfolio.
Speaker 1: And then the other part of this to actually maybe
Speaker 1: the more expensive part of this is just the pipes
Speaker 1: that are in the ground across Texas are crumbling. They're
Speaker 1: starting to break down, some of that is in fact
Speaker 1: worsened when drought comes and it causes the ground to shift.
Speaker 1: But I mean, you've identified ninety five billion dollars to
Speaker 1: fix broken water and waste water systems. There's an astounding
Speaker 1: amount of water leaking out of pipes in Texas that's
Speaker 1: causing waste and causing us to need more supply.
Speaker 4: Tell us a little bit about that situation.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So this this is data from the Texas Living
Speaker 5: Waters Project, which which found that our aging, deteriorating, leaking,
Speaker 5: drinking water systems leak enough water five hundred and seventy
Speaker 5: two thousand acre feet to be exact to fill a
Speaker 5: major state reservoir like Possum Kingdom up north, like Buchanan
Speaker 5: here in central Texas. So our inefficiencies alone are just
Speaker 5: shoving water supplies out the window, and so we're waste
Speaker 5: a lot to begin with. But then we have these
Speaker 5: bigger issues of aging, deteriorating and failing systems. And the
Speaker 5: Tribune has done a great job of providing coverage of
Speaker 5: incidents that have ocurred over the past few years, such
Speaker 5: as the boil water notices and water condamination in the Rato.
Speaker 5: The thirty five year old trunk line that broke in
Speaker 5: and Odessa, leaving the town without water for forty eight hours.
Speaker 5: Even the system failure in Zavala. Y'all's coverage of these
Speaker 5: water system failures has been impressive and it provides very
Speaker 5: good anecdotal data with regard to this bigger problem of
Speaker 5: systems that are operating well past their useful life and
Speaker 5: are really becoming economic liabilities to these communities.
Speaker 1: And the EPA has estimated that this cities need about
Speaker 1: sixty one point three billion dollars in financial assistance over
Speaker 1: the next twenty years, so about a little bit over
Speaker 1: three billion dollars a year to help address some of
Speaker 1: these issues. The past four years, that average was around
Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy five million, So we're talking about
Speaker 1: the need being identified being about ten times what is
Speaker 1: currently being spent per year in the state. So it
Speaker 1: all sort of comes down to, I think, no matter what,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of money that needs to be spent here.
Speaker 1: We talked a little bit earlier two point five billion
Speaker 1: dollars identified in the budget or the proposed budget from
Speaker 1: both chambers this year. Your report in fact called for
Speaker 1: five billion. That's also what Senator Charles Perry, who's been
Speaker 1: kind of taking a lot of the lead on this,
Speaker 1: particularly in the Senate, on this issue called for Are
Speaker 1: you worried about the political will to actually get this done?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just hard to commit money in a
Speaker 1: fiscally conservative state like this.
Speaker 5: So yes, we recommended that, you know, there'd be a
Speaker 5: five billion dollar initial endowment for the Texas Water Fund
Speaker 5: and the consideration of approving a one billion per fiscal
Speaker 5: year revenue dedication to that fund for the decades to come.
Speaker 5: The two point five billion that the House and Senate
Speaker 5: have initially approved for water infrastructure is an extraordinary good signal.
Speaker 5: This is the highest appropriation we've ever seen the state
Speaker 5: make for water infrastructure, more than the one billion dollars
Speaker 5: for Prop six last year and the two billion dollars
Speaker 5: for the Swift And so the legislature is already sending
Speaker 5: a bright, clear, strong signal that they want to prioritize
Speaker 5: water infrastructure investment. But that two point five billion, which
Speaker 5: hopefully we can go higher to five, it's not going
Speaker 5: to come close to closing that one hundred and ten
Speaker 5: billion dollar water infrastructure funding gap. And so that's why
Speaker 5: we think that dedicated funding which we already use for
Speaker 5: state parks and we already use for state highways. That
Speaker 5: financial strategy is a kind of model that we need
Speaker 5: to use in order to tackle our water infrastructure challenges.
Speaker 1: The idea here is that in recent years with transportation
Speaker 1: with state parks things like that, the legislature has essentially
Speaker 1: made it so that's automatic that a certain amount of
Speaker 1: revenue coming in goes to that, like you say, dedicated fund.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and these were constitutional amendments that were approved by
Speaker 5: voters in twenty fourteen and twenty fifteen that would dedicate
Speaker 5: state sales and severance taxes to the state Highway Fund.
Speaker 1: So what do you feel like is the biggest like,
Speaker 1: what worries you the most about this? What's the biggest
Speaker 1: hurdle that's going to have to be crossed to going
Speaker 1: from to raise the confidence in our kind of long
Speaker 1: term expectations for water.
Speaker 6: In the state.
Speaker 5: I think the House and Senate leadership have sent a
Speaker 5: great signal thus far. I mean, two point five billion
Speaker 5: dollars for water infrastructure. It's a lot of money, great start,
Speaker 5: and we should end them for their leadership on this issue.
Speaker 5: Getting to yes on a revenue dedication is going to
Speaker 5: be the challenge. And at Texas twenty thirty six, we've
Speaker 5: been working with Chambers of Commerce eedcs, the business and
Speaker 5: industry community and helping make the case for the legislature
Speaker 5: on why water infrastructure investment is so important for economic
Speaker 5: growth and development. Most people in the legislaturead I'll say,
Speaker 5: everyone really likes the benefits of the Texas economic miracle,
Speaker 5: economic growth, population growth, jobs, good stuff is happening here.
Speaker 5: They want that to continue, and they know that in
Speaker 5: order for that to happen, you have to have three things.
Speaker 5: One qualified workforce, two dependable electric grid, and three reliable
Speaker 5: water infrastructure. But if we want to have that reliable
Speaker 5: water infrastructure, that's got to be dedicated funding for it.
Speaker 6: I think that's going to be.
Speaker 5: It's certainly an uphill fight, but it's not an instrumental,
Speaker 5: insurmountable policy discussion for this session.
Speaker 4: All right, well, we will watch and see how it goes.
Speaker 1: Thank you Jeremy for coming and explaining this complicated but
Speaker 1: important issue to us. Thank you to our producers, Rob
Speaker 1: and Chris, and thank you to our sponsor water Grows.
Speaker 1: Once again, if people have comments, questions, things they want
Speaker 1: us to discuss, tripcast at Texastribune dot org.
Speaker 4: We will be back next week