Covering Texas state agencies, regulatory commissions, and governmental bodies shaping policy across the Lone Star State.
Three Texas counties may leave fire sprinklers out of the cells where they lock people up — including a 500-bed jail Liberty County has not built yet — under votes the state’s jail regulator took Nov. 5.
The Texas Legislature has not overridden a governor's veto since 1979.
The Texas House Subcommittee on Telecommunications & Broadband will gavel in at 11 a.m. Aug. 18 to take invited and public testimony on three interim charges: monitoring the state's Broadband Development Office and its multibillion-dollar grant programs, studying pole attachment fees as a barrier to broadband deployment, and exploring public-private partnerships for wireless first responder networks.
Gov. Greg Abbott announced Aug. 10 that OpenAI will comply with the statewide standards and guidelines he established for data centers, according to a news release from the governor's office.
Gov. Greg Abbott announced Aug. 10 that Bristol Myers Squibb will establish a new pharmaceutical manufacturing campus in Houston, a capital investment of approximately $2.3 billion that is expected to create nearly 500 new jobs, according to a news release from the governor's office.
Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham announced Aug. 10 that the Texas General Land Office and the Railroad Commission of Texas have plugged 42 orphaned wells on state-owned submerged land, including 16 wells off High Island in Jefferson County, as part of the agencies' ongoing statewide Coastal Protection Project, according to a news release from the GLO.
Gov. Greg Abbott announced Aug. 10 that Meta will comply with the standards and guidelines he established for data centers in Texas, according to a news release from the governor's office.
Gov. Greg Abbott convened the inaugural meeting of the Texas Classroom Commission at the Governor's Mansion on Aug. 10, charging the panel with strengthening student achievement, supporting Texas educators and making Texas the top state in the nation for educating children, according to a news release from the governor's office.
The Sunset Advisory Commission hears public testimony Wednesday on the Texas Workforce Commission, and the staff report on the table says the agency has done such a poor job policing private trade schools that the work should be handed to somebody else.
The board that runs Texas's state juvenile lockups and oversees county juvenile probation meets in Fort Worth on Wednesday afternoon to approve the money it will ask the Legislature for in 2028 and 2029 — a request the state's three most powerful officials have ordered every agency to shrink by three percent.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality votes Wednesday on whether to propose a rule that would stop companies with poor compliance records from slipping back into the state's simplest water pollution permits through an automated approval.
State Representative Drew Darby asked the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on Monday to hold a public meeting in Tom Green County before the agency acts on four air quality permit applications tied to a proposed data center campus near Dove Creek.
The Texas House Committee on Transportation will gavel in at 9:30 a.m. Aug. 17 to work through one of the fullest interim agendas of the month: eight charges that range from the federal crackdown on commercial driver licenses held by foreign drivers to the economic weight of Texas seaports and broad oversight of the state's transportation agencies.
The Railroad Commission of Texas issued 693 original drilling permits in July 2026, including 612 permits to drill new oil or gas wells, according to an Aug. 6 news release from the agency.