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Committee advances a package of honorary highway namings and several routine transportation bills
Summary
The Senate Committee on Transportation reported a series of honorary highway namings and noncontroversial bills, including facility and memorial namings, specialty plates for retired firefighters, a change to motor-carrier enforcement timing, and elimination of a $3 administrative fee for driver-education paperwork.
The Senate Committee on Transportation reported favorably a slate of mostly honorary designations and several routine transportation measures and placed many on the local uncontested calendar.
Honorary namings advanced included: the Bob Cornett Parkway designation for the US 377 Crescent relief route (Senate Bill 8 76); the Deputy Constable Reuben Garcia Memorial Highway on State Highway 48 in Cameron County (House Bill 25 23); the Eduardo “Eddie” Garcia Jr. area engineer and maintenance facility designation for a TxDOT building in Stark County (House Bill 27 63); the Army Specialist Joey Linz Memorial Highway on FM 1097 in Montgomery County (House Bill 21 43); and multiple other memorial highway designations presented by senators during the hearing. Sponsors and resource witnesses generally described these as honorary designations supported by local resolutions or letters and placed no legal or land-use changes into effect.
The committee also advanced House Bill 31 35 to authorize specialty license plates recognizing retired firefighters, including former volunteers and certified fire-protection personnel; resource staff from the Department of Motor Vehicles appeared.
On operational matters, the committee advanced House Bill 16 72, which shortens an administrative delay in the Department of Public Safety’s motor-carrier enforcement process by removing an apparently unused appeal step that previously extended the time before a carrier could be entered into the DMV unsatisfactory-carrier database. Senator Johnson explained the bill is intended to allow troopers to more quickly identify and remove unsafe carriers from the road.
Senator Nichols also laid out House Bill 30 12, which eliminates a longstanding $3 administrative fee tied to driver-course paperwork; committee members described the fee as an anachronism because records are now digital.
Most of the bills in this package were reported favorably by voice or roll-call votes (commonly recorded as six ayes and no nays) and were sent to the full Senate with recommendations that they pass and be printed. Several law-enforcement associations and municipal groups registered support and were placed into the record for many of the honorary-designation bills.
