Sen. Lois Kolkhorst’s eight-member committee will take invited and public testimony on foreign exploitation of Texas surrogacy, and on how the state is carrying out new laws on child-abuse records, youth-camp safety and assisted-living emergencies.
When: 8:30 AM CT, Wednesday, July 8, 2026
Where: Room E1.012 (Hearing Room), Capitol Extension, Austin
Chair: Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R–Brenham (SD-18)
Vice Chair: Sen. Charles Perry, R–Lubbock (SD-28)
Format: Invited and public testimony; public testimony limited to 2 minutes per witness; written testimony requires 20 copies to the committee clerk; interim charges only — no vote on legislation
Live video: senate.texas.gov/av-live.php
Submit comments online: N/A — testimony given in person; no online public-comment portal listed for this hearing
The Texas Senate Committee on Health and Human Services will gavel in at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, July 8 to examine what its chair calls the exploitation of the state’s surrogacy and fertility industry by foreign interests, and to measure the state’s progress carrying out a cluster of new laws covering child-abuse records, youth-camp safety and assisted-living emergencies. The committee will hear invited and public testimony, a day after the same panel meets on THC and mental health.
Chaired by Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, the eight-member panel carries a 5-3 Republican majority and holds jurisdiction over Medicaid, public health, state hospitals and long-term care. It is working through interim charges ahead of the 90th Legislature, which convenes in January 2027. Wednesday’s agenda pairs a new and politically charged assignment on surrogacy with routine but consequential oversight of laws the Legislature passed in 2025 — the kind of follow-up work that determines whether a statute delivers what its authors intended.
The first charge, “Combating the Exploitation of Surrogacy,” directs the committee to examine unethical and foreign interests exploiting the surrogacy and fertility industries in Texas and to recommend ways to end that exploitation and the related harm to patients and children. The charge follows a case that drew national attention in 2025, when California authorities removed 21 young children — one of them carried by a Texas surrogate — from a couple who ran a surrogacy agency that investigators say served only themselves. The episode fueled a broader debate over foreign nationals contracting with American surrogates and the citizenship of the children born, and it has since prompted federal legislation aimed at the same concern.
The second charge, “Monitoring,” asks the panel to track how laws it handled last session are being implemented, and the notice singles out three. The first is the Department of Family and Protective Services abuse and neglect central registry, the state database of people found to have harmed children. The second is Senate Bill 1 of the Second Called Session, the youth-camp and campground safety law enacted after the July 4, 2025, Hill Country floods that killed dozens of people, including campers and counselors at Camp Mystic. The measure requires camps to file emergency plans and generally bars cabins in floodways.
The third law under review is House Bill 3595, which requires assisted-living facilities to keep an emergency preparedness and contingency plan — including a climate-controlled “area of refuge” kept between 68 and 82 degrees during power failures — and sets penalties for noncompliance. Members will weigh whether agencies and providers have the rules and resources in place to meet the new standards before the next disaster season.
Because the committee is meeting in the interim, it will not vote on legislation. Any findings would shape bills filed when the 90th Legislature convenes in 2027.
Committee members
- Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R–Brenham (SD-18) — Chair
- Sen. Charles Perry, R–Lubbock (SD-28) — Vice Chair
- Sen. César Blanco, D–El Paso (SD-29)
- Sen. Molly Cook, D–Houston (SD-15)
- Sen. Bob Hall, R–Edgewood (SD-2)
- Sen. Bryan Hughes, R–Mineola (SD-1)
- Sen. Borris L. Miles, D–Houston (SD-13)
- Sen. Kevin Sparks, R–Midland (SD-31)