Senate Interim Charges 2015. Accountability. Eliminate Toll Roads. No Eminent Domain for Private Toll Roads.

• TxDOT Funding:

  • Monitor any new & anticipated revenue appropriated to TXDOT
  • Recommendations that address project prioritization & selection, effectiveness of staffing levels and project delivery methods.

• Vehicle Inspection System

  • Evaluate the efficiency & effectiveness of the state’s Vehicle Inspection Program.
  • Recommend how to compress/otherwise reduce the number of required inspections.

• Regional Mobility Authorities

  • Review State Highway Fund grants & loans to Regional Mobility Authorities
  • Recommend if additional oversight procedures are needed to ensure the RMA’s expenditures are a valid and accountable use of State Highway Funds.

• Panama Canal

  • Study the demand placed on the state’s ports, roadways and railways resulting from the Panama Canal expansion
  • Recommendations that ensure transportation infrastructure is adequate to accommodate increases in imports and exports.

• Driver Responsibility Program:

  • Evaluate the necessity of the Driver Responsibility Program
  • Recommendations for alternative methods of achieving the programs objectives.

• Oversize/Overweight Vehicle Regulations, Penalties and Fines:

  • Review current state and federal regulations, penalties and fines related to oversize and overweight vehicles
  • Recommendations to minimize impacts on the state’s roadways and bridges.

• Monitoring Charge:

  • Monitor what happeneded during the 84th. Specifically:
  • 1) Progress of the Texas Department of Transportation’s efforts to propose a plan to eliminate toll roads;
  • 2) Removing eminent domain authority from private toll corporations;
  • 3) Ending the issuing of any new debt from the Texas Mobility Fund & prohibiting future use of the TMF on toll projects;
  • 4) The Sunset’s review of TXDOT.