Financing Conservation: Texas’ Water Infrastructure Bank and the 20 Percent Set-Aside

Jeremy Brown
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Abstract

In the early 2010s, Texas suffered a historic drought that drew attention to the long-term limits and vulnerabilities of its water system and that prompted the state legislature, in its 2013 session, to take on water as one of its key policy issues. With near unanimity, the Legislature passed a package of bills that – with voter approval, in the form of Proposition 6 – created a new water infrastructure bank, the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas (SWIFT). SWIFT is intended to provide the state-level financial assistance that water utilities had previously estimated they needed to implement the water strategies recommended in the State Water Plan (SWP). The legislature capitalized SWIFT with a $2 billion appropriation and established a set-aside – codified at Texas Water §15.434(b)(2) – that requires twenty percent of SWIFT monies go toward SWP strategies for conservation or reuse. This set-aside helped to win support for SWIFT and Proposition 6 among environmentalists and other stakeholders potentially wary of new large-scale infrastructure projects. The Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) has been tasked with implementing SWIFT and the set-aside according to a statutorily mandated schedule. In this white paper, the Center for Global Energy, International Arbitration and Environmental Law at The University of Texas School of Law (Energy Center) identifies the most important challenges that the agency will face in doing so.
融资节约:德克萨斯州的水基础设施银行和20%的预留
2010年代初,德克萨斯州遭受了一场历史性的干旱,这引起了人们对其供水系统长期限制和脆弱性的关注,并促使州立法机构在2013年的会议上将水问题作为其关键政策问题之一。在几乎全体一致的情况下,立法机关通过了一系列法案,这些法案以6号提案的形式获得选民的批准,创建了一个新的水基础设施银行——德克萨斯州州水实施基金(SWIFT)。SWIFT旨在提供州一级的财政援助,这些援助是水务公司之前估计他们需要实施州水计划(SWP)中建议的水战略。立法机关向SWIFT拨款20亿美元,并建立了一项拨备-在德克萨斯州水法§15.434(b)(2)中编纂-要求SWIFT资金的20%用于保护或再利用SWP战略。这次搁置有助于为SWIFT和6号提案赢得环保人士和其他可能对新的大型基础设施项目持谨慎态度的利益相关者的支持。德克萨斯州水资源开发委员会(TWDB)的任务是根据法定规定的时间表实施SWIFT和预留。在这份白皮书中,德克萨斯大学法学院全球能源、国际仲裁和环境法中心(能源中心)确定了该机构在此过程中将面临的最重要挑战。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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