<Music> Welcome to Party politics, where we prepare you for your next political conversation.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus, where political science professors here at the University of Houston.

And we're going to dig in this week in a slightly different way than we normally do.

Typically, we cover the crazy news of the week.

This week, we're going to dig deep into some core policy questions that animate Texas politics and are of serious concern to the future of the state.

There are three of them we're going to get to this time.

First water, second transportation, and third THC reform.

They're all in the news in various ways, and we all experience them in different ways.

So we can get into some of the details, but we hope this is a kind of part of a continuing series where we address these big policy questions that a place like Texas is always concerned with, or economic questions, their policy questions or political questions, and they're just obviously connected to the future of the state.

So let's first talk about water.

Water is the most precious resource that the state has.

And everybody wants a taste.

Everybody or everybody wants a sip is maybe one way to go about it.

This is not just a natural resource issue.

This is also a core political issue about growth, property rights, regional powers, the battle between cities and rural areas, between markets and regulation, between short term growth and kind of long term stability for the state are all connected to water.

So let's start at the front.

And that's sort of how water policy sort of evolved in Texas and what it means to the kind of current moment.

So water is very interesting because it's a growth story that collides with scarcity.

Yes, yes.

Oh, it's the battle of, two monsters, trying to fill up the next glass of water.

This is Mothra versus Godzilla.. Yeah, it is very complicated.

Over a cup of water.

And it's obviously tied to, primarily urban growth.

It's primarily tied to, some of the Texas regions that are metropolitan and fast growing.

But it's also a story of, the implications that it has for the agricultural industry, in terms of having irrigation water and municipal water.

And that's the some of the ways that the, Texas Water Board divides, the usage of water in the state.

So it's also, tied to population growth as you know, Texas has been increasingly growing in terms of population.

2020, we have around, 50 million people.

I mean, I'm sorry, 30 million people.

And by 2050, 2070, we're going to have almost, a little bit over 50 million people.

Water is also important because it's tied to industry, it's tied to economic growth.

It's tied to data centers.

It's tied to everything.

Yeah.

The data center issue is really the most intriguing.

And we're certainly going to see more of this pop up in the next legislative session, because this is really going to be a conundrum for a lot of rural areas that want the growth and they want the money from the development of these, but they also are worried that it's using resources in ways that are problematic and that really minimize and diminish it very quickly.

Yeah, it's all about growth, right?

Obviously it's a question about how urban and and rural Texas kind of compete for this.

It's funny because politically that used to be where the fight was, right.

Rural Texas versus urban Texas.

And now you see it really kind of more suburban Texas versus urban Texas because the population has shifted into these different areas.

Right.

I want to ask you about Corpus Christi.

This is a huge event and moment because Corpus Christi is running out of water.

They had planned years ago to do this desalinization plant that was going to solve some of the region's water problems.

It turns out that's not going to happen.

And they end up kind of looking for other sources.

Greg Abbott has said that they're going to have possibly some state intervention on this.

They have attempted to remove their mayor.

You know, and so this is just becoming a real mess politically.

What is this?

Tell us about the way that urban Texas is handling the water policies.

Well, I think that, well, we have the Texas Water Development Board and the Texas Water Development Board does.

Well, first of all, divides the state into regions, and then each region does a very thoughtful and very deep planning.

The interesting thing is, or I think what it's missing is that municipalities and counties think about water as an afterthought.

In the whole scheme of planning or when there is an emergency.

But no one takes these, result from the Texas, water them on board and insert it, in every single aspect of planning.

And that has to do with, building new roads, right?

Because if water cannot, refill surpluses of water wells, water wells or whatnot, then we have problems, with new communities being developed, we irrigation, municipal use, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

So that lack of planning is extremely important.

And on the one hand then I think, the second part of the problem is that we have, especially in big cities, a lot of water that is wasted.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because we have aging infrastructure.

Leaky pipes, pipes that have been there 50 years, or more and have never been, really kept or changed or whatnot.

And that has also important implications, because we waste a lot of gallons of water in these, leaky pipes and so on and so forth.

So there's a. Big issue in Houston, and they try to address it by fixing some of the pipes.

And because people's like, water bills were outrageous, because it was just dripping and dripping and.

Right.

Yeah.

That's something that.

People.

Yeah And and money.

And a lot of money and a lot of people to fix it.

Because the city knows where those leaky pipes are.

Yeah.

But if you don't have the resources to go in and change them.

Yeah, then it's useless, right.

So so that's another issue in terms of the planning that counties, municipalities, so on and so forth tend to think about.

They don't have a, plan.

Right?

Most of them don't have a plan that is going to say we're going to be changing infrastructure so often and move forward with these constant plan is like when the thing exploded, it's like, oh, we need to fix this thing.

Yeah.

Like, yeah, but this thing has been there for 30 years.

You can't fix you easy.

Yeah.

You knew that you would have to change this thing 30 years ago when you finish building.

That's so true.

And these problems are preventable because, like, these are predictable.

Right.

And the other issue is that you have basically drought turns this process into the zero sum game.

So like you said, there's this kind of long term crisis that the state effects.

And you can see this coming from a long way off.

Oh yeah.

The states more often in drought than not.

And so this becomes a problem where you've got to fight over kind of who owns what water.

Right.

So as we know, in Texas, basically like there are if you own the land, you own the water under the land.

But right there are kind of junior property rights holders who can use some of the surface land, but those are generally cities that like, use that thing that that water for various purposes.

When there's a drought, sometimes the laws revert to people who own the water underneath, and that often means agriculture.

And that's a huge industry and obviously something that has to be protected.

But that fight is really the kind of animating force in this.

So like you said, these various water boards have to figure out how to manage all of this.

And the other component to this, there's two I want to mention.

The first is energy production.

Right.

Like oil and gas production, especially in the Permian Basin, uses a lot of water.

And so that obviously is a huge factor, right.

When it comes to how the water gets distributed.

The other is these big data centers, right?

These, kind of municipal areas, especially in rural Texas, are encouraging these groups to come locate there because it means some financial boom.

But it also takes a lot of resources.

So how do those things kind of play into this water story?

Well, I mean, there has to be a concentrated effort from the state government, doing these approach because there is only one water.

Yeah.

Is it?

Yes.

Property rights.

You own the land.

You own the water.

Yes, indeed.

But that water is not your water.

Water.

Because that water under the aquifer is connected to other, storage, whatever.

Right.

So there has to be a concerted effort in terms of conservation and water loss reduction.

Also in terms of, having, reusing, implementing good reuse technologies, also trying to re, I guess, the aquifer storage and these regional coordination is extremely, extremely important.

And just to give you, you know, an idea of just like changing the HOA, requirements of having your front lawn, evergreen 365, that could have very important implications for, conservation or.

Oh, I didn't know I had to do that.

That's my bad.

Oh, yeah.

That's why it's always dead.

Exactly.

Sorry.

Oh, geez.

So I'm doing my part to say you are doing your part.

You know, new technologies of permeable, you know, pavement installed that could just refill aquifers, aquifers and so on and so forth.

Yeah.

So and also storage when we have huge storms, all that water is, you know, wasted-ish Yeah.

Right.

So it.

Runs off and it runs.

Off, goes.

Into the.

Yeah.

You know, the ocean.

Yeah.

So you could use it and storage it for other purposes.

That's a great point.

No.

And I think your point about the kind of environmental impact is really good that is that the political story and the environmental story are connected here.

Right?

And obviously it affects everybody slightly differently, but everyone sort of in the same vein, right, where you need to be able to kind of solve the tension for this enforcement of flow standards, but also prioritize human consumption and development.

Because like you said, we're growing as a state.

You have to be able to have that growth accommodated.

That is really the tax base for the state.

If that changes in a significant way, then you could have a budget crunch, but like creates all kinds of other.

Oh yeah.

So that's one thing.

And solutions obviously are you know, possible.

It's just it's hard to coordinate across such a big place.

When everyone has their own incentives in their own interest to be able to kind of pull in some of those dynamics.

So that creates, a lot of that tension.

What about data centers?

This is obviously a kind of huge question because that explosive growth is straining the energy grid, but it also requires a lot of water to be able to build and to be able to produce.

So how does that play into some of the big picture questions about the water use?

Well, I think that the industry and regulators have not figured out.

Yeah, I mean, data centers are a need because that's where technology's moving.

That's where the industry's moving.

But in terms of, capacity, in terms of power generation, that's a huge thing.

Yeah.

Right.

Because it's we have one grid.

Ercot, manages that grid, the Texas power grid, but it doesn't necessarily produces a little bit more.

And it's not just about one source of of of power generation.

It's about multiple sources.

And it's all of the above.

It's coal.

Absolutely.

It's, solar.

Absolutely.

It's wind.

Absolutely.

And now.

Increasingly nuclear.

Exactly.

The state is moving into that.

Governor Abbott had a commission, studying these, particular new technologies and these new technologies, especially what they're called, small modular reactors are just fascinating.

Are little reactors.

Yeah.

Very safe.

That could produce a lot of energy.

That is going to be super clean.

On the other hand, and for sharing communion, especially when you're thinking about rural communities, that is impossible to say, oh, we're going to be a new coal plant here.

Well, that's going to take 11,000 years.

Yeah.

But creating these small modular reactors is something that you can generate.

And these data centers can be self-sufficient.

And the energy or the power that they're not using, they can inject it back to the grid.

Yeah.

That's good.

Well, one additional problem the state faces is that we have to get around.

And so transportation is a huge question about the way the state's going to be able to govern itself.

Like we said, growth is a huge component to this.

The state's adding millions of people every decade, especially in these big urban centers.

We don't have to tell anybody listening or watching that it's getting stuck in traffic is a bummer.

And but part of the reason is because there has been this pressure.

The state has proposed efforts to try to funnel off money from certain tax base to fund transportation issues.

So proposition one that the voters passed is a way to skim off money from oil and gas revenue proposition seven does the same for some sales tax revenue.

So it's just redistributing where that tax money goes.

But it's for like this specific purpose.

The problem is it's not enough money.

Right.

We are growing too fast and the roads are aging too quickly to be able to keep up with all of this.

So because Texas is so structurally car dependent, it's a challenge to be able to maintain these roads.

We haven't seen a significant investment in public transportation in Houston.

Here, Metro is always struggling for funds.

Their ability to get ridership is pretty modest.

In my hometown in Collin County, the effort to try to essentially undo DART has underway.

They've paused things, but this was a project that was a long term project.

Counties paid for, with the hope that there would be a kind of light rail between, you know, the suburbs and the urban core and the airport.

And there's just been problems in terms of ridership, in terms of crime, in terms of funding.

So it's the case now, a lot of municipalities are saying, forget it, right, right.

And that just pushes more pressure onto roads, especially toll roads, which people hate.

They say it's being taxed twice.

And in some cases it is.

We actually know too, that the way that these are funded essentially will be perpetually roads that are paid for by us.

Yeah.

The idea of was to have the toll roads in place and then essentially it'll pay itself off with the tolls and then there won't be tolls.

But there's this kind of conundrum where they're allowed to continue to collect debt, which means they're allowed to continue to collect tolls.

So yeah, this is an ongoing issue that the legislature has addressed to say things like, you know, we can ban toll roads or limit toll roads, but it's still all part of the same problem.

So I've just spit out like ten different problems.

Help me solve them.

What's Texas going to do?

Well, I mean, you just, spelled out eight, but I have another ten.

And the issue here There are more.

Oh, yes.

Thank you.

Okay, so when we think about transportation, we tend to think about commuters stopped on on on on traffic on 59, 45 and I-10.

You might call.

Me.

You call me at least twice a week.

Yes.

Stuck in traffic.

Yeah.

Complaining about.

It.

Yeah.

Stuck in traffic.

Right.

Toll roads are also a parking lot.

The not fast or anything like that.

It's whatever.

If you take, any toll role in the state of Texas is going to be packed traffic hour or whatever.

Right.

But here the issue is important because Texas is growing so much, the amount of tonnage, that we're going to be moving in a couple of years or decades is going to surpass between 8 and 10 billion.

Yeah.

Tonnage of goods, labor, energy, trade, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

You cannot solve Texas transportation problems by building more roads.

First of all, there is no, room anymore in terms of that is very costly and takes forever.

Yeah.

Right.

The other thing, that the state needs to start thinking about is obviously we have, the Freeport port.

Yeah.

Down there in Brazoria County.

That is very interesting to move goods around.

And also, we have the railroad, and the railroad is extremely important.

If, the state really starts investing in getting those, rail lines, up to speed up to technology, then you can start moving a lot of stuff, via, railroad an have, at least some of the roads be less, congested.

If you drive from here to the border, you only see 18 wheels and it's great, right.

Because that means that the Texas economy is booming.

Yeah, but there is a lot of traffic moving goods around, the state.

So that's one important issue.

And the other important issue is that you have to have, roads that serve urban reliability, rural reliability, truck reliability, and that the delay per person, per vehicle is reduced every single year.

Yeah.

And that's a struggle because it's costly.

And TXDOT already says they're underfunded even despite the.

Oh yeah.

Like we said that a bunch of money is being poured into it.

So that's really the bottom line is that it's really about growth geography and about governing priorities.

Right.

Where are you going to put the money and how is it going to affect the economy?

Like you said, there's a lot of different moving parts that have to be thought through.

So can Texas build its way out of this traffic conundrum?

The answer, I think, is no.

Unless we have like a lot more money, I think.

I think the answer is yes.

Yes.

But you need the the political will to do that.

And you need a significant budget reallocation in terms of how these priorities are going to be, tackled by.

And we need to start thinking, for example, if, school vouchers, is the next round, we already know that, for example, school badges are over the top and very close to the 1 billion is, are we going to increase that or say like, well, this is it.

Yeah.

No more money into this thing, and then the money is going to go to these very important issues.

Yeah.

That's a question is like a priority question.

Right.

Exactly.

Well the other question too is, is sort of what the future looks like for transportation.

Right.

You have managed lanes in terms of like HOV lanes, right?

You have like environmental like vehicles, like EV vehicles.

Right.

Which you need infrastructure to be able to accommodate.

Right.

So that also has implications to taxation, because a lot of the kind of gas tax is connected to the kind of funding for TXDOT and for a lot of these infrastructure and road programs.

But if people are driving electric vehicles, then they won't be able to pay the gas tax to appear like a fee to have one.

But that's a one time deal and you don't pay gas anymore.

So that's an issue.

I think, too, that has to be thought through in terms of the future, as that grows and continues to be something that motivates the economy and people sort of frustration at the pump.

They're going to look for alternatives.

And that alternative has serious implications to how transportation policy unfolds, especially the funding side of things.

The third issue that was on our list of kind of complicated scenarios is about THC and THC reform.

There has been a lot of movement the last couple of months on this issue, but it is basically predates a lot of fights that the legislature has had about what to do about the regulatory issue of THC.

In a nutshell, basically the lege voted to ban it.

The governor vetoed it, saying we're not sure that we're ready to ban it.

We want to regulate it.

The regulations came out and end up going into effect at the end of this month.

The rules basically eliminate smokable hemp products, and increase licensing fees.

It also has things like increasing child resistant packaging, increasing licensing fees, like I mentioned, new labeling, testing and bookkeeping requirements.

So there's a lot more kind of financially that's put into this.

The effort in terms of the supply side, a lot of purveyors say that it's going to price them out of the market.

Right.

This is a huge booming market, $1 billion market in Texas, multiple billions of dollars across the country.

The national government, the federal government, basically opened up this loophole to allow for some THC products to be available.

It's not like full blown marijuana, as some states have legalized.

It's sort of partially that it's diet weed, as some people call it.

This is something that's federally legal for now.

But the feds have said that they're going to undo this.

And they closed this loophole in the farm bill that was passed in 2019, essentially kind of killing this market across the country.

I think they'll probably do something to try to save this.

But as it is now in Texas, it's still legal.

They're still able to have these regulatory structure around it.

And it's a huge booming industry.

All the things are coming to this head where something's going to have to be done.

Right.

If the market goes away because the feds have closed this loophole, it's going to kill all these businesses that have tried to invest in this.

And that's not just true for Texas, true for the rest of the country, too.

So what do you see as like the kind of path forward on this is lege going to get involved any more on this, or have they kind of already decided what they've done?

I don't know, because I think there's, a two track model in the first hand.

So one is that you, Texas will become a recreational cannabis state like Colorado.

or Illinois something like that.

To legalize marijuana.

To legalize marijuana right.

And that is, as of today, not very likely to happen.

I'm not going to bet on that.

Right Then you have the THC market.

That, hemp, etc., etc., that there seems to be willingness on behalf of the state government to regulate it tightly.

Right.

And and that is something that will, continue going.

Yes.

Obviously marijuana cannabis is not going to be legalized, anytime soon.

And then, on the other track, you have, what would be the compassionate yes use program.

And, and that has been increasing in terms of, the number of, of, of, issues that, can have access to these medical marijuana or medicalize it or etc., etc.. Right, which is expanding.

But a lot of people who are against the ban on THC products say that that's not expanding fast enough that a lot of veterans groups in particular, are suggesting that it's too expensive to go through that system.

Yes.

I mean, I'm sure you, like me, have friends who have been involved in this.

They've had various forms of cancer or other kinds of the long term diseases that they need to be able to have access to it.

And it's pricey.

So that's a problem in terms of the way that the system is structured.

So part of it is like a regulated, heavily organized arrangement where medically it's available.

And it's it's like legal.

Yeah.

But on the other hand it's like sort of cheaper.

But it's less well regulated until now, at least according to the government.

Right.

And you need to increase, for example, the number of licenses that last year, the legislature, said that they were going to increase it.

I think there were three providers, and now they're going to increase it to 15.

So that will facilitate access for these medical reasons.

And and indeed, in terms of when you think about, medical marijuana, it helps a lot of things in term as you say, cancer, PTSD, epilepsy, you name it, and all these things having point implications for, patients.

But again, is something that is I think it's, it's, it's it's moving slowly but surely.

Yeah.

And then we're going to see, I guess in a couple of years or one of those sessions where the answer in terms of, legalizing recreational marijuana comes.

Yeah.

A knock on the door.

I mean, polling suggests that people want it.

And so, yeah, it's not that always the case that people get what they want in these conditions, because there's lots of caveats to it.

Right?

There is a concern about the health implications to marijuana.

There's a lot of abuse also just the case too, that it's hard to police that.

Right.

Like local municipalities don't have the organizational capacity, the enforcement capacity to check to see like whether or not the kind of whatever you're smoking isn't like legal or illegal.

So, like, there's a lot of problems there that have to be beefed up.

And the lege just wasn't ready for all of that.

It kind of tripped into this, stumbled towards the solution.

The governor sort of bailed them out, saying, okay, we're just going to veto this and see if the regulatory structure can handle it and maybe it can.

It's still very new, obviously, but this is the question that the Lege has to deal with.

Do they regulate, restrict or legalize and those are all complicated very politically charged questions.

Right.

Because the Republicans are not sure what they want to do on this.

Democrats are pretty unified that they would like to see it happen, but that does mean implications.

Other states that have legalized marijuana haven't had just a boom of financial resources as a result.

So it's not like just the kind of golden ticket that's going to get you, you know, into the chocolate factory issue, like, you know, your.

Golden ticket, but it's also not, you know, pocket change.

It's a, a big amount of money.

And if the state's got expensive, tastes like, for instance, school vouchers or they want to fund water or transportation issues.

There you go.

I have something to pay.

You go.

Well, but for this week.

That's it.

Please send us, which other, policy issues you want us to discuss.

And certainly we'll take your suggestions into consideration.

I'm Jeronmo Cortina.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.

Would love to hear from you.

This is party politics.

We'll see you next week.

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