Senate Natural Resources Panel To Take Up Produced-Water Rules, Oilfield Waste and Wildfire readiness

The Texas Senate Committee on Natural Resources will gavel in at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 11, to hear from the state’s three major natural-resource agencies and take invited and public testimony on two interim charges — the rollout of last session’s produced-water and oilfield-waste laws, and the state’s defenses against catastrophic wildfire. Texans who want to testify should note the ground rules in the hearing notice: public testimony is capped at 3 minutes, and written testimony requires 20 copies for the clerk plus an emailed digital copy.

Chaired by Sen. Kevin Sparks, R-Midland, the seven-member panel splits 4-3 in Republicans’ favor, with Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, as vice chair. Because the committee is meeting in the interim, it will take no vote; the hearing opens with oversight testimony from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Railroad Commission of Texas and the Texas General Land Office — the agencies whose work frames nearly everything else on the panel’s plate.

The committee’s “Monitoring” charge directs members to track implementation of legislation the 89th Legislature passed in 2025, and the notice singles out two measures. Senate Bill 1145 gives TCEQ authority to issue permits for the land application of water produced from certain mining and oil and gas extraction operations. House Bill 49 addresses the treatment and beneficial use of fluid oil and gas waste, and it limits liability for companies that treat or reuse it — a framework aimed at moving the vast volumes of salty water that surface alongside Permian Basin crude toward reuse rather than disposal wells. Lawmakers will be listening for how far agency rulemaking has progressed and whether either statute needs a fix when the Legislature reconvenes.

The second charge, “Protecting Texas from Wildfires,” instructs the panel to study the state’s wildfire prevention and mitigation strategies, evaluate fuel-management practices such as prescribed burns and mechanical thinning, and assess “the vulnerability of utility infrastructure in high-risk areas,” according to the official notice. That last phrase carries weight in this committee: a Texas House investigative committee concluded that the 2024 Smokehouse Creek fire — which burned more than 1 million acres in the Panhandle, the largest wildfire in state history — started when a decayed utility pole snapped. Sparks, whose district includes much of the fire-scarred region, authored Senate Bill 34, the wildfire-response measure that passed the Senate unanimously in April 2025 and became law that June. Among other provisions, the law ordered a statewide firefighting-equipment database and a Texas A&M Forest Service study of fuel loading in high-risk areas, with recommendations due by Dec. 1, 2026 — a timeline that makes Tuesday’s testimony an early look at findings the next Legislature will inherit.

Notably absent from the agenda is the committee’s third interim charge, on the decommissioning of wind and solar facilities, which remains pending for a future hearing. Because this is an interim hearing, no legislation will be voted on; whatever members hear Tuesday will inform the recommendations the committee sends to the 90th Legislature, which convenes in January 2027.

Meeting at a glance

Committee members

• Sen. Kevin Sparks, R–Midland (SD-31) — Chair
• Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D–Laredo (SD-21) — Vice Chair
• Sen. Carol Alvarado, D–Houston (SD-6)
• Sen. César Blanco, D–El Paso (SD-29)
• Sen. Pete Flores, R–Pleasanton (SD-24)
• Sen. Bryan Hughes, R–Mineola (SD-1)
• Sen. Tan Parker, R–Flower Mound (SD-12)