Legislature set to tackle outdoors issues
Most Texas boat owners and others towing trailers would be exempt from mandatory safety inspections of those trailers before they renew the vehicle’s annual registration, elk living in Texas would no longer be considered “exotic livestock,” and more landowners who manage their property to benefit wildlife would be eligible for lower property tax rates under bills filed during the first days of the Texas Legislature’s 85th regular session.
Those are among the more than two dozen pieces of legislation that would affect many of the state’s anglers, hunters, boaters, other outdoors-related activities and the natural resources on which those activities rely introduced through the session’s first 11 days.
More will come before the March 10 deadline for filing bills to be considered during the 140-day, biennial exercise in lawmaking, with proposals targeting boating safety, authorizing fees to recover some of the cost of the state’s hugely popular Managed Lands Deer Permit program, and loosening restrictions bottling up the almost $27 million generated through sale of lifetime hunting or fishing licences likely among them. Clarity on trailers
Texas law has long required annual safety inspections of trailers that have an actual or registered gross weight of more than 4,500 pounds. That covers a large percentage of boat trailers, camping trailers and larger utility trailers used to haul ATVs and other outdoors equipment.
But until this past year, many trailer owners were not aware they were required to get annual safety inspections of those vehicles, or simply ignored the requirement as enforcement of the requirement was almost nonexistent. That changed when the 2015 Texas Legislature passed legislation requiring proof an eligible vehicle had passed the annual safety inspection before the vehicle could be registered or its annual registration renewed.
The bill was designed to address problems with owners of motor vehicles who ignored the required annual safety inspection of their cars or trucks. But the new rule covered all eligible vehicles, including trailers. This proved a shock — and an added expense — for Texas trailer owners who had been unaware of the inspection requirement or had simply ignored it.
A bill by Rep. Dennis Paul, R-Houston, whose Harris County district includes the Clear Lake area, would solve that problem for many trailer owners. Paul’s proposal — HB 946 — would exempt trailers having a gross vehicle weight of 7,500 pounds or less from the annual safety inspection requirement. That would exempt almost all commonly used boat trailers, utility trailers and travel trailers from the inspection requirement.
Members of Texas’ big-and-getting-bigger paddling community would be required to add a piece of safety equipment to their gear under HB 550, introduced by Rep. Ryan Guillen, D-Rio Grande City. Under the proposal, those in kayaks, canoes and other non-motorized vessels would have to have with them a whistle, air horn or other soundproducing device meeting the U.S. Coast Guard’s requirement for such devices. Coast Guard rules don’t specify the kind of sound-producing device, only that it must be able to be heard at least a halfmile away. Under current Texas statutes, motorized boats already fall under the requirement.
More Texas landowners could be encouraged to manage their property to benefit wildlife and become eligible for a reduced property tax rate on that land under legislation filed by Rep. Larry Phillips, R-Sherman.
Texas tax laws currently allows property on which landowners practice specified standards of management that benefit wildlife to be eligible for the ad valorem property tax rate applied to agricultural and timber lands — the so-called “ag exemption.”
But to qualify for what has become known as a “wildlife exemption,” the property previously must have been appraised as “open” space,” “timber Land” or otherwise been appraised and taxed under the so-called “ag exemption.” Sherman’s HB 643 would remove the requirement that property previously must have been appraised and taxed under the “ag exemption” to qualify for consideration under the wildlife management option. Bill looks at elk
Elk are considered one of the premier game animals in the North America. But not in Texas, where the Texas Legislature in 1997 passed legislation removing elk from the list of game species, redesignated the big cervids as “exotic livestock” and removed authority to regulate elk from Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Under current law, elk in Texas are considered the property of the landowner.
A bill by Rep. Pancho Nevarez, D-Eagle Pass, would reverse the Legislature’s actions of 20 years ago, removing elk from the list of “exotic livestock” and placing them back under the authority of TPWD as a game animal.
Two bills — HB 485 by Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Little Elm, and SB 133 by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe — would make purchases of hunting supplies and firearms exempt from sales tax on the Saturday and Sunday of the last full weekend in August, just ahead of the Sept. 1 opening of dove season which signals the start of hunting seasons.
The bills define hunting supplies as “ammunition, archery equipment, hunting blinds and stands, hunting decoys, firearm cleaning supplies, gun cases and gun safes, hunting optics and hunting safety equipment.” Similar bills were introduced in the 2017 session.
In the wake of several high-profile boating accidents over past months, expect legislation targeting boating safety to be filed over coming weeks. Most often mentioned are bills that would mandate use of engine cut-off switches, commonly called “kill switches,” by boaters and legislation that would require wearing of personal flotation devices — life jackets — by those in boats under a certain length when those boats are being operated. Both requirements already are in place in Texas for boaters operating or passengers on personal watercraft.
Also look for legislation that would authorize the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to charge a fee of those participating in the agency’s Managed Lands Deer Permit program. The MLDP program, designed to encour- age private landowners to put their properties under TPWD-approved wildlife management and deer herd management plans and reward that effort with greater flexibility in harvesting deer on those tracts through longer season lengths (as long as five months) and other incentives, has grown hugely popular. This past year, about 10,000 landowners controlling about 30 million acres participated in the MLDP program. MLDP program tweak
That popularity has overwhelmed the resources of TPWD wildlife division staff charged with administering the program, a process that includes on-site visits to the properties to survey habitat and wildlife populations, develop and approve wildlife management plans, set deer harvest recommendations, issue program permits and monitor compliance.
Currently, the MLDP program is available at no cost to participants but considerable cost to TPWD. Look for legislation that would allow the agency to assess a fee to recover some of the costs of running the increasingly popular and increas- ingly costly program.
Also look for legislation that would give TPWD flexibility to use some of the almost $27 million that has accumulated in the endowment fund generated by sale of lifetime hunting and fishing licenses.
When legislation giving TPWD authority to create lifetime licenses was passed more than two decades ago, it set up a system whereby money collected through sale of lifetime licenses was placed in the endowment fund, and only the interest generated by that fund could be appropriated to TPWD and used only in funding public hunting and fishing enhancement programs.
As interest rates have fallen to record low levels, so has funding from the lifetime license endowment. Currently, TPWD annually receives only about $125,000 a year from a lifetime license endowment fund holding $26.9 million. It will take legislative action to free some of that license money so the agency can use it to support public hunting and fishing programs in the state.