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Advocacy Update 6/09/2015

Advocacy Update 6/09/2015

Texas:Earlier this year, several bills were introduced in the Texas House of Representatives dealing with vehicle registration fees and a fuel tax increase. These bills were HB 399 to increase the fuel tax and HB 401 to increase vehicle registration fees. Both of these bills were referred to the Transportation Committee for consideration.

Escapees RV Club alerted the members in March of this year and requested that you contact your respective representatives and members of the Transportation Committee about the impact of the bills and request that the bills be rejected. I personally met with Representative White about the impact of the bills, and met with the office staff of several members of the Transportation Committee explaining the position of Escapees RV Club and its members.

The 84th Texas Legislature ended their work on June 1, 2015. These two bills did not make it out of the Transportation Committee, and the bills never came up for a hearing. As of this writing, the two bills are dead.

The next Texas Legislature will meet in January 2017, with proposed bills starting to be filed in November 2016. I will again study the proposed bills and will alert you to any potential problems.

I would like to thank everyone who took the time to contact their representatives and the Transportation Committee members. Through our combined efforts we were able to alert the Legislature on how these bills would impact the RVing community.

Jim Koca
Advocacy Director

Texas:
Several bills have been introduced in the Texas House of Representatives and are moving forward in the Texas Legislature. HB 401, authored by Representative Patricia Harless, calls for all vehicle registration fees to sharply increase.

New language in the Transportation Code calls for vehicles with a gross weight of 6,000 pounds (or less) to rise from $50.75 to $75, and then increase again January 1, 2018, to $100. While this increase may not appear to be terribly severe, heavier vehicles will have a larger impact. An RV, for instance, weighing between 18,001- 25,999 will increase from $205 to $410 if this bill passes.

Please review the entire content of HB 401. Feel free to contact the Transportation Committee members, if you so desire. It would also be advisable to contact your Representative where you reside in Texas.

If we can stop the doubling of registration fees before it passes out of committee, that would be ideal, but this bill does require a Constitutional Amendment, which must be approved by the voters. This is an example of how important it is to carefully review and vote accordingly on Constitutional Amendments!

Note: Representative Harless has also introduced HB 399, which calls for a fuel tax increase.

Please contact your representative and members of the Transportation Committee to let them know the impact of higher registration fees will affect you and all Texas residents.

Jim Koca

Advocacy Director

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