{"id":27655,"date":"2013-05-14T15:08:57","date_gmt":"2013-05-14T20:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=27655"},"modified":"2013-11-04T11:21:38","modified_gmt":"2013-11-04T17:21:38","slug":"new-movement-on-funding-state-water-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2013\/05\/14\/new-movement-on-funding-state-water-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"New Movement on Funding State Water Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_26443\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2013\/04\/11\/new-plan-would-put-water-and-roads-funding-in-voters-hands\/water-bills-to-rise-to-average-376\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-26443\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-26443\" title=\"WATER BILLS TO RISE TO AVERAGE &amp;POUND;376\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2013\/04\/10588921_H16738531-300x195.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"195\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2013\/04\/10588921_H16738531-300x195.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2013\/04\/10588921_H16738531-620x403.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">PA PHOTOS \/LANDOV<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A plan from the Texas Senate would take big decisions about funding for water and roads and put them in the hands of voters.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>There\u2019s a new push at the State Capital to pull $2 Billion dollars from Texas\u2019 Rainy Day Fund and put it towards water projects. After a recent move in the House<a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2013\/04\/30\/funding-for-state-water-plan-sinks-in-house\/\"> died on the floor in dramatic fashion two weeks ago<\/a>, there were real questions on whether the water plan would get funded this legislative session. Today, backers of that plan got a glimmer of hope, while opponents are concerned the state could end up spending more than it should.<\/p>\n<p>The new idea is to use a resolution <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2013\/04\/11\/new-plan-would-put-water-and-roads-funding-in-voters-hands\/\">already passed in the state Senate<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.legis.state.tx.us\/BillLookup\/History.aspx?LegSess=83R&amp;Bill=SJR1\">SJR 1<\/a>, where lawmakers would vote to set aside two billion dollars from the rainy day fund for water. But it would put the decision to create a dedicated account for water projects to voters statewide.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe $2 billion dollars doesn\u2019t go into the fund unless the fund is created by the voters,&#8221;\u00a0says House Appropriations Chairman Jim Pitts.<\/p>\n<p>Why so complicated? Doing it like this, lawmakers may see a way to fund water projects without voting to break the state-mandated spending cap. That was something many Republicans were loathe to do.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The idea is already taking fire from Tea Party conservatives like state Rep. Van Taylor, R-Plano, who oppose tapping the rainy day fund. &#8220;Finding out that SJR 1 which would drain Texas&#8217; small savings account and imperil Texas&#8217; credit rating, is moving again reminds me of the Death Star coming back online in Return of the Jedi,&#8221; Taylor <a href=\"https:\/\/m.facebook.com\/VanForTexas\/posts\/10152842184430323?_rdr\">wrote on his Facebook page today<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But Rep. Pitts thinks the plan will come before the House Appropriations Committee as early as\u00a0tomorrow.<\/p>\n<h5><em>Ben Philpott of KUT contributed reporting.<\/em><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s a new push at the State Capital to pull $2 Billion dollars from Texas\u2019 Rainy Day Fund and put it towards water projects. After a recent move in the House died on the floor in dramatic fashion two weeks ago, there were real questions on whether the water plan would get funded this legislative [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":26443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[61,336,282,310,85],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27655"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27655"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27663,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27655\/revisions\/27663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}