Today's Committee Meetings on the LRL website is a calendar of interim committee hearings with links to agendas. Below are resources related to upcoming Interim Hearings.
House Committee on Agriculture & Livestock
Charge: Role of Texas Department of Agriculture and the Texas Animal Health Commission in the response to Hurricane Harvey; Impact of hurricane on producers in the agriculture and livestock industries in Texas
- Emergency Preparation & Response, Texas Animal Health Commission
- STAR Fund – Helping Texas Farmers and Ranchers Recover from Disaster, Texas Department of Agriculture
Charge: How to improve, promote, and standardize the Texas olive and olive oil industry; Necessity of creating a commodity board or similar type of organization
- The Future of Olives in Texas, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, February 24, 2018
- Overview of Olive Production in Texas & California, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, 2017
- Multi-Disciplinary U.S. Olive Oil Stakeholders Strategy Session Final Report, American Olive Oil Producers Association, September 18-19, 2016
- United States Standards for Grades of Olive Oil and Olive–Pomace Oil, United States Department of Agriculture, October 25, 2010
Charge: Privatizing Texas Department of Agriculture's Seed Certification Program and related areas through a nonprofit crop improvement association
- Seed Bills Stall in Texas Legislature (State News), American Seed Trade Association, May 18, 2017
- Texas Certified Fall Seed Directory (Texas Seed Certification), Texas Department of Agriculture, 2017
- Seed Certification, Texas Department of Agriculture
- Seed Certification, Texas Foundation Seed Service, Texas A&M AgriLife Research
- Agriculture Code Chapter 62, Seed and Plant Certification
Charge: Rules, regulations, and enforcement authority of the Texas Department of Agriculture's Structural Pest Control Service
- Structural Pest Control Service Penalty Matrix, Texas Department of Agriculture, September 27, 2016
- An Audit Report on Performance Measures at the Structural Pest Control Service, Texas State Auditor, October 2008
- Structural Pest Control Service (Resources, reports and publications), Texas Department of Agriculture
- Structural Pest Control Service Complaint Process, Complaint Resolution Procedures, Texas Department of Agriculture
- Texas Occupations Code Chapter 1951, Structural Pest Control
- 4 Texas Administrative Code §§ 7.114-7.205, Structural Pest Control Service
Charge: Evaluate the uses of industrial hemp and the economic feasibility of developing an industrial hemp market
- Hemp as an Agricultural Commodity, Congressional Research Service, June 22, 2018
- State Industrial Hemp Statutes, National Conference of State Legislatures, April 18, 2018
- A Flourishing Hemp Industry is Growing in Colorado, Foundation for Economic Education, March 31, 2018
- "This Extract is Driving a Hemp Gold Rush. But is it Legal?," Stateline (Pew Charitable Trusts), February 5, 2018
- A Stakeholder Review of the Feasibility of Industrial Hemp By-Products as Animal Feed Ingredients, Colorado Department of Agriculture, December 29, 2017
- Industrial Hemp: From Seed to Market, Cornell Cooperative Extension, Cornell University, May 2017
- "High Hopes for Industrial Hemp Farming," Brown Political Review, Brown University, November 8, 2016
- Industrial Hemp: Opportunities and Challenges for Washington, School of Economic Sciences, Washington State University, Updated February 2015
Senate Select Committee on Violence in Schools & School Security
Charge: Root cause of mass murder in schools including, but not limited to, risk factors such as mental health, substance use disorders, anger management, social isolation, the impact of high intensity media coverage, and desensitization to violence resulting from video games, music, film, and social media
- "The Myth of Blunted Gamers: No Evidence for Desensitization in Empathy for Pain After a Violent Video Game Intervention in a Longitudinal fMRI Study on Non-Gamers," Neurosignals, January 18, 2018
- First Strike: The Violence Connection, Humane Society of the United States, 2018
- "Don’t Name Them, Don’t Show Them, But Report Everything Else: A Pragmatic Proposal for Denying Mass Killers the Attention They Seek and Deterring Future Offenders," American Behavioral Scientist, October 15, 2017
- "School Shooters: The Warning Signs," Forensic Digest, February 12, 2016
- "Emotional Desensitization to Violence Contributes to Adolescents’ Violent Behavior," American Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, January 2016
- "Thresholds of Violence: How School Shootings Catch On," The New Yorker, October 19, 2015
- "Technical Report on the Review of the Violent Video Game Literature," American Psychological Association Task Force on Violent Media, August 13, 2015
- "Contagion in Mass Killings and School Shootings," PLOS One, July 2, 2015
- Final Report of The Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, March 6, 2015
- "Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, and the Politics of American Firearms," American Journal of Public Health, February 2015
House Committee on Culture, Recreation & Tourism and House Committee on Agriculture & Livestock (Joint Hearing)
Charge: Cause of declining populations of monarch butterflies and bees; impact of these migratory species' decline on agricultural production and the economy
Monarch Butterflies:
- "Mechanisms Behind the Monarch's Decline," Science, June 22, 2018
- "Unlikely Allies are Crowdsourcing Funding and Habitat to Save the Monarch Butterfly" (Blog), Environmental Defense Fund, March 1, 2018 and Monarch Butterfly Habitat Exchange
- Texas Monarch and Native Pollinator Conservation Plan, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, April 2016
- The Monarch Butterfly & Other Insect Pollinators, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
- The Monarch Butterfly (Southwest Region) and Save the Monarch Butterfly, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
- Monarch Butterfly (Texas: Overview) and Monarch Butterflies, Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Bees:
- "Warmer Winters Have Texas Bees Buzzing, But Here's Why That's Not So Sweet," Dallas Morning News, December 22, 2017
- An Updated Understanding of Texas Bumble Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Species Presence and Potential Distributions in Texas, USA, PeerJ. 2017; 5: e3612, National Institute of Health, August 10, 2017
- Pollinators in Peril, A Systematic Status Review of North American and Hawaiian Native Bees, Center for Biological Diversity, February 2017
- "New Map Highlights Bee Population Declines Across the U.S.," Smithsonian.com, February 23, 2017
- Bumble Bee Conservation, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
- Honey Bee Surveys and Reports, National Agricultural Statistics Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
- Protecting Bees and Other Pollinators from Pesticides, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
House Committee on Culture, Recreation & Tourism
Charge 1: Roles of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's and the Texas Historical Commission's in the response to Hurricane Harvey; economic, recreational, and biological impacts and needed repairs from Harvey as they relate to applicable state agencies and the following areas and industries under the purview of the Committee:
- State parks
- Wildlife and fish
- Historic sites and buildings
- Art and cultural resources
- Travel and tourism
- Recommendations for timely recovery of these areas from Harvey, and mitigation of future natural disasters
- "Hurricane Harvey Recovery a Slow, Costly Process for State's Parks, Other Areas," Houston Chronicle, November 16, 2017
- "Harvey's Historic Wrath: Hurricane Damages THC's Fulton Mansion, Impacts Other Historic Sites," The Medallion, Texas Historical Commission, Fall 2017
- Interim Report to the 85th Texas Legislature (Charge 1 – Prevention and mitigation of natural disasters), House Committee on County Affairs, January 2017
- Interim Report to the 85th Texas Legislature (Charge 1 – Repair of state parks damaged by natural disasters), House Committee on Culture, Recreation & Tourism, January 2017
- Interim Report to the 85th Texas Legislature (Charge 1 – Natural disaster preparedness), House Committee on State Affairs, January 2017
- Hurricane Harvey: Fiscal Analyses and Resources (Agency expenditures, projected costs, contracts, disaster related transfers, state and federal resources, LBB committee hearing materials), Legislative Budget Board
- Hurricane Harvey 2017 (List of parks that sustained damage with photos), Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
Charge 2: Feasibility of establishing and mobilizing a volunteer contingency of private boat owners through the boat registration and license database administered by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to assist first responders during natural disasters like Hurricane Harvey
- Boat Registration and Titles – Frequently Asked Questions, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
House Committee on Urban Affairs
Charge 5: Local government oversight of abandoned and substandard buildings, including buildings of historical significance
- Texas Local Government Code Chapter 214, Municipal Regulation of Housing and Other Structures
Charge 7: Monitor agencies and programs under the Committee's jurisdiction and implementation of relevant legislation passed by the 85th Legislature
