The Texas House of Representatives began floor debate Monday on a $1.3 billion water infrastructure investment bill, a measure that supporters say is urgently needed to address the state’s long-term water supply challenges as population growth, agricultural demand, and recurring drought conditions strain resources across vast swaths of Texas.
House Bill 7, the Water for Texas Act, would allocate funds to accelerate the implementation of projects identified in the State Water Plan — the state’s official blueprint for meeting Texas’s water needs over the next 50 years. The bill would fund reservoir construction, aquifer storage and recovery projects, water recycling infrastructure, and efficiency programs for municipalities and agricultural users.
“Texas is running out of time when it comes to water,” said Representative Tracy King, a Democrat from Batesville who has made water policy a central focus of his legislative career. “The State Water Plan tells us exactly what we need to do, but we have consistently underfunded the mechanisms to do it. This bill is a serious attempt to close that gap.”
The legislation was developed with bipartisan support reflecting broad recognition that water security is a cross-partisan issue in Texas, where agriculture, energy production, and rapidly growing urban and suburban communities all have intense and often competing water needs. Even so, debate was expected to be contentious over the allocation formula and the balance between urban and rural water project funding.
West Texas lawmakers pressed for greater emphasis on aquifer replenishment projects and efficiency investments that they said would provide more immediate relief to agricultural communities facing critical groundwater depletion in the Ogallala and other regional aquifers. “The farmers of West Texas cannot wait for reservoir projects that will take a decade to build,” said Representative Drew Darby of San Angelo. “They need help now.”
Urban representatives from the Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio areas countered that large-scale reservoir projects were essential for meeting the water needs of a state that is expected to add another 10 million residents by 2040. “We have to plan for the future, not just the present,” said Representative Mary González of Clint. “And that means building the infrastructure that will serve a Texas of 35 or 40 million people.”
Environmental groups expressed mixed views on the legislation. Conservation organizations supported the water recycling and efficiency components but raised concerns about certain reservoir projects they said would displace communities and damage aquatic ecosystems. They called for stronger environmental review standards to be incorporated into the bill’s project approval criteria.
The Texas Water Development Board, which would administer a significant portion of the bill’s funding, testified in committee that the investments contemplated in HB 7 were aligned with the State Water Plan’s highest-priority projects and that the board had the administrative capacity to implement them efficiently.
A final House vote was anticipated later in the week, with the Senate expected to take up its own version of water legislation in the following weeks before the two chambers would need to negotiate a conference committee agreement.
