LEGISLATIVE ALERT

Texas wildlife, its habitat, and the people who manage it need your help to influence action on the following bills:

HB 3123, which provides a public process for setting standards for assessing wildlife tax valuation.

PROBLEM: Appraisal districts in fast-growing counties that are changing from rural to suburban or urban, such as Hays, Kendall and others, are running into difficulty determining what constitutes wildlife habitat. While a 1,000-acre ranch broken into two 500-acre tracts obviously is wildlife habitat and the same ranch divided into 1,000 one- acre home sites obviously is not, what about the incremental divisions in between? Is ten, 100-acre tracts habitat? Is 100, ten-acre tracts habitat? These questions are currently being answered in the courts.

BACKGROUND: HB 3123, sponsored by Rep. Clyde Alexander and by Sen. Buster Brown in the Senate, allows the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, with the assistance of the Comptroller’s Office and the Texas Agricultural Extension Service, to create a set of standards, on a county-by-county basis, that defines wildlife habitat. The standards are subject to public (including appraisal districts and their attorneys) participation and review, and the actual rules for applying the standards will be written by the Comptroller’s Office.

STICKING POINT: Lawyers benefiting from the court brawls and appraisal districts fearing that TPWD and other agencies will arbitrarily designate wildlife habitat thereby establishing tax rules do not support this legislation. Because the session is almost over, the bill is in danger of being “talked to death” on the Senate floor.

ACTION: Contact Lt. Governor Bill Ratliff (phone: 512/463-0001) and ask that he ensures that the bill gets brought up in the Senate, that no amendments are attached and that it get passed out as is. (The version before the Senate contains no amendments and won’t have to be reviewed by the House if it passes as is.)

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HB247, which clears up an inconsistency that exists between the Texas Water Code and the constitutional amendment that encourages wildlife habitat management through ad valorem tax incentives.

PROBLEM: Currently, wildlife managers who use stock tanks of 200- acre feet or less to provide water for wildlife or recreational opportunities for clients are subject to $5,000/day/impoundment fine if these stock tanks aren’t permitted by the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission. HB 247, by Rep. Bob Turner and sponsored by Sen. Jeff Wentworth in the Senate, corrects this by exempting these activities from the permitting requirement.

STICKING POINT: After reviewing the House version, the Senate crafted its own version. It must now be adopted, as written, by the House in order to complete the legislative process before the session ends. Two of TWA’s best friends in the House, Rep. Robbie Cook, Vice Chairman of the State Recreational Resources Committee and Rep. Gary Walker, Chairman of the Land and Resource Management Committee, need to be persuaded that this bill is good for wildlife. Their reluctance stems from the (wrong) idea that this bill is allowing a consumptive water use to escape permitting, when it’s not. How much water is used when someone catches a bass from a tank, shoots a duck over a man-made marsh or goes swimming in the pond? The bill just legitimizes non- consumptive recreational activities that are taking place on or near the water.

ACTION: Contact Rep. Robbie Cook (phone: 512/ 463-0682) and Rep. Gary Walker (phone: 512/463-0678) and ask them to allow the Senate version of the bill to stand.

For more information contact David K. Langford at (800) 839-9453.