Pause Before Panicking
The proposed abolishment of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
I think most of us are on edge after 8 weeks of assaults on our federal agencies by DOGE and the Trump administration, so the news coming out yesterday about the proposed bill from freshman state congressman Representative Pat Curry (R-Waco) to abolish TPWD and spread out its duties across several current state agencies is definitely putting a lot of Texans into a fit of panic we didn’t see coming.
Initially I was very concerned, but glancing at the comment sections of some of the articles I took my worries down a notch. Texans like their state parks. We passed the Centennial Parks Conservation Fund in 2023 to fund more park land after decades of stagnant land protections from the state. This proposed bill is at odds with all of that.
That said, this is something to keep an eye on this legislative session and into future sessions if it doesn’t end up passing this time around.
HB 4938, which was just filed on March 13th, 2025, would transfer the current operations of TPWD to various agencies including the Texas General Land Office, Texas Department of Agriculture, and Texas Department of Public Safety. I think you can clearly say that when you start fragmenting one agency and trying to outsource it across to three different agencies you're going to end up having significant strife between the agencies with coordination and clarity in achieving the end goal of the originating agency. Which is, of course, the point. Break it to the point of non-functioning so you can sell the parts off to the highest bidder and eliminate oversight and regulations.
State Representative District 56 Pat Curry said, “We have the power to subpoena and call any agency to deal with expenditures of the state of Texas dollars.”
Waco’s Representative Pat Curry says the state can save costs at every level of government.
“We do have plenty of fraud and waste," Curry said. "With the help of AI and the ability for a group to spend time looking into things, we can run things a lot more efficiently. - State Rep. Pat Curry weights in on the Texas DOGE committee via KXXV
It’s shouldn’t be a surprise to learn that Pat Curry is now on the newly created committee of Texas’ version of DOGE, so of course this bill is coming directly from that. What is with these guys and their obsession with AI? How many paid lunches have they received to hear from techbros about the wonderful benefits of AI? Have they even discussed how AI will continue to contribute to Texas’ water shortage problems? I’m guessing not. This was the first I’d heard about the Texas DOGE committee but it appears it is a bipartisan effort so perhaps it will not go off the deep-end like the federal version. I’m not holding my breath, though.
I think it should also be addressed that Rep. Curry has a vested interest and a grudge with TPWD: he breeds deer. And he isn’t fond of how they’ve handled chronic wasting disease (CWD).
“I think Parks and Wildlife does a great service in a lot of different ways and it’s been a very good agency, and I’m a hunter, I’m a fisherman,” he shared.
However, because of this he sees firsthand people’s issues with the department and some of their regulations.
For example, many have raised concerns over the department’s handling of the chronic wasting disease with deer, killing millions in an effort to control the spread.
“If you have a deer breeder over here that might have a problem and every ranch within five miles of it is restricted because of that one guy, that’s stomping on landowner rights,” he said. - ‘I want fairness’: State Rep. Pat Curry files House bill to abolish Texas Parks and Wildlife Department via KWTX
It seems to me that constantly electing people who want to deregulate agencies because said elected official would directly benefit from that deregulation is A Problem. There are always valid avenues for reform and to rework regulations with valid input from the public, and I think most of us can agree that is necessary from time to time. This isn’t that.
The bill was filed last week and hasn’t been assigned to a committee yet, and it may not get one. Time will tell. That said, you should still be calling and emailing your state representatives to let them know you are against this so that this does not proceed any further, at least in this legislative session. And if Rep. Curry is in your district, you should find a way to get him out of office next election cycle. This won’t be the last time he’ll propose this bill and someone else may do the dirty work for him next time, too.
So, don’t panic but be pro-active. I’ll update as this unfolds.
I’ve been working on a couple of other essays and this one popped up so quickly I had to get something out sooner than later. You’ll likely get another essay from me later this week about the federal clearcutting directive. And I do have a different TPWD essay I’ve been thinking about for a while but may put that on hold for a few weeks until I see what happens with Curry’s bill.
To transfer our natural bounty into the hands of hated developers would be a betrayal of all the people over the years who donated their land to Texas in order to preserve it.
Every Representative, especially in his or her first term, files a bill to change the sky from blue to burnt orange or to have New Mexico cede all its territory east of the Rio Grande. If they want to be taken seriously in the future, they drop those ideas in their second term.
As you've pointed out, there is a huge and very wealthy constituency that loves our parks (for the wrong reasons, sometimes, but we'll take the win.) I feel confident that nothing will come of this bill, which, for what it's worth, was filed on the day of the bill filing deadline.
Thanks for your reporting on this, Misti.