AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas House of Representatives passed its first bills of this session on Tuesday, including bills aimed at improving the state’s wildfire response and prohibiting taxes on financial trades.
Throughout the legislative session, the lower chamber has been gaveling in to take up things like resolutions, but Tuesday was the first time in 2025 members moved and debated bills on the House floor.
One bill lawmakers passed was House Bill 13, establishing the Texas Interoperability Council. It is part of lawmakers’ response to the Panhandle wildfires last year.
This time last year, Texans living in the Panhandle saw the Smokehouse Creek Fire grow to become the largest in the state’s recorded history. It burned more than 1 million acres and killed three people and more than 15,000 head of cattle.
Three lawmakers – State Sen. Kevin Sparks (R-Midland), State Rep. Ken King (R-Canadian) and State Rep. Caroline Fairly (R-Amarillo) – are caring a package of bills that proposes giving two state agencies more oversight on unregulated powerlines, increasing funding for rural volunteer fire departments and creating a database of firefighting equipment.
The council created under HB 13 would create a statewide strategic plan to enhance emergency communication systems and oversee a grant program to help local fire departments buy equipment.
“My goal is to ensure that every first responder that puts their life on the line to battle these fires and other disasters have the tools to communicate effectively those around them,” King said.
House lawmakers proposed amendments to require establishing the Texas Interoperability Council to have open, publicly available meetings, which King said it already does, and to establish a moratorium in 10 years. But both of those amendments failed to get enough support among House lawmakers.
The bill passed the lower chamber by a vote of 129-18.
The House also approved House Joint Resolution 4 on Tuesday. It proposes a constitutional amendment that would ban the Legislature from imposing a tax on financial trades. There is not currently one, but this bill would just make sure there never is. It does not prohibit general business taxes, taxes on mineral production, insurance premiums, sales taxes or administrative fees.
If approved in both chambers, Texans would get to vote on this in November.
“The purpose of this House Joint Resolution is to keep Texas as one of as the most business-friendly state in the United States,” the bill’s author, Rep. Morgan Meyer (R-University Park), said. “For us to continue down that path and to continue to encourage businesses to come to Texas, these are the necessary steps that we have to take to make sure Texas remains as business friendly as we are.”
Several Democrats tried to amend the bill, saying they worry it will hamstring future efforts to tax the wealthiest Texans.
“We’re constitutionally locking in tax breaks for billionaires making $10 million trades through high frequency algorithms, while our constituents are paying more at the gas pump, more at the grocery store, more in property taxes, and getting less in return,” State Rep. Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos (D-Richardson) said. “I have to ask: who are we really fighting for? The people on Main Street or the investors on Wall Street?”
Both HB 13 and HJR 4 need to pass the House again before they head to the Senate for approval.