House State Affairs to Weigh Disaster Response Overhaul and a Statewide Interoperability Council

The Texas House Committee on State Affairs will gavel in at 10 a.m. Sept. 14 in Room JHR 140 to take invited and public testimony on two interim charges that pick up where the Legislature stopped after the July 2025 Hill Country floods: how the state prepares for, responds to and recovers from disasters, and whether Texas should stand up a formal council to make first responders’ radios work with one another. Texans who do not plan to appear in person can file electronic comments through the House comment portal until the hearing adjourns, and in-person witnesses must register through the House witness registration system.

Rep. Ken King, R–Canadian, chairs the 15-member panel — nine Republicans and six Democrats — with Rep. Ana Hernandez, D–Houston, as vice chair, according to the committee’s page. State Affairs holds jurisdiction over questions of state policy, the administration of state government and the conduct of state agencies, including the Office of the Governor. King is not a neutral referee on either item: he authored the emergency-communications bills that died in 2025 and chaired the House conferees on the disaster package that died with them.

The disaster preparedness, response and recovery charge asks members to review how current law works in practice and to examine state and local requirements for training, licensing, education, coordination and mass-fatality operations, according to the hearing notice. That is close to a restatement of Senate Bill 2 of the 89th Legislature’s second called session, a wide-ranging disaster bill by Sen. Charles Perry, R–Lubbock, that the House passed as amended on Aug. 21, 2025. The Senate refused to concur, both chambers named conferees — King chaired the House side — and the bill never emerged. Its House companion, House Bill 2, which covered training for justices of the peace and mass-fatality response, was laid on the table the same day.

What did survive that session was narrower and aimed squarely at children’s camps. Senate Bill 1 on campground and youth camp safety, House Bill 1 on youth camp emergency plans, and Senate Bill 3 on outdoor warning sirens in flash-flood-prone areas all took effect immediately on Sept. 5, 2025. The Dispatch reported this summer that Hill Country camps credited earlier, site-specific flood warnings with helping them move campers safely when storms returned a year after floodwaters killed more than 130 people along the Guadalupe River.

The interoperable communications charge is the more concrete of the two. It asks the committee to examine creating a formal Interoperability Council to set statewide standards, support regional systems and coordinate local, state and federal responders, and to make recommendations on its governance, membership, authority and funding. King has carried that idea twice and lost it twice in the Senate. House Bill 13 cleared the House on April 2, 2025, and died in Senate Finance; House Bill 3 of the second called session, which added a grant program and rules for buying public safety radio systems, passed the House on Aug. 21, 2025, and died when the Senate select committee cancelled its Aug. 27 hearing. The Texas Tribune reported the initial cost of the council and its grant program at roughly $500 million.

Funding is where the charge is likely to bite. Texas pays for much of its emergency communications infrastructure through a 9-1-1 service fee that has sat at 50 cents per line per month since it was created — the statutory maximum. The Commission on State Emergency Communications voted in July to leave it there while its own chief financial officer laid out why that will not hold, as the Dispatch reported. Any council the committee recommends will need a revenue source the Legislature has so far declined to create.

Because this is an interim hearing, the committee will take no votes and no legislation is before it. What members hear will shape the panel’s interim report and the disaster and emergency-communications bills filed for the 90th Legislature, which convenes in January 2027.

Meeting at a glance

Committee members

• Rep. Ken King, R–Canadian (HD-88) — Chair
• Rep. Ana Hernandez, D–Houston (HD-143) — Vice Chair
• Rep. Rafael Anchía, D–Dallas (HD-103)
• Rep. Drew Darby, R–San Angelo (HD-72)
• Rep. Yvonne Davis, D–Dallas (HD-111)
• Rep. Charlie Geren, R–Fort Worth (HD-99)
• Rep. Ryan Guillen, R–Rio Grande City (HD-31)
• Rep. Lacey Hull, R–Houston (HD-138)
• Rep. John W. McQueeney, R–Fort Worth (HD-97)
• Rep. Will Metcalf, R–Conroe (HD-16)
• Rep. Dade Phelan, R–Beaumont (HD-21)
• Rep. Richard Peña Raymond, D–Laredo (HD-42)
• Rep. John T. Smithee, R–Amarillo (HD-86)
• Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D–Houston (HD-141)
• Rep. Chris Turner, D–Grand Prairie (HD-101)