By Eleni Himaras
reporter@ltview
Despite a somewhat messy close to the legislative session that left several bills stuck in the house, Sen. Kirk Watson says that he is pleased with what his office accomplished.

“There are things, as a general statement, I wish the legislature had done better on but I’m personally pleased with the session my office had,” he said. “In those instances where we didn’t get the legislation passed that we wanted, we didn’t leave anything on the field, we gave it everything we had. I can’t say enough about my staff.”
Many of Watson’s major successes this term came in the area of environment. He successfully sponsored the first bill related to area of environment. He said he successfully sponsored the first bill related to climate change with statewide implications and stayed true to his promise last session to implement a television recycling program.
“We also, last session, passed a bill that set a national model for the recycling of computer equipment. We promised we’d be back this session to do the same thing for televisions and we were able to pass that bill.”
He wrote a successful bill that will create a program for sequestering carbon in the brine of the gulf coast.
“The State of Texas could be in a position to make a huge amount of money for the permanent school fund,” he said of where the money raised by that program will go.
As he promised his constituents early on, he also worked to increase transparency in the budget process.
“There is over $3 billion that is raised for d“There is over $3 billion that is raised for dedicated purpose but then the state doesn’t spend it for those purposes,” he said. “I made an amendment that requires in the next session of the Legislature that when the comptroller is making budget estimates, they will have to break it out into individual items so we will have to be a lot more transparent.”
Closer to home, he said he is happy with the Capital Metro Reform Bill that will change the structure of the board and require that it be comprised of people with certain areas of expertise like financial management and executive management.
“It also puts the agency under a top to bottom performance evaluation and requires it be redone in six years to ensure that we are actually making improvements,” he said.
One of the biggest losses for Watson this year, he said, was the solar energy bill.
“We passed it out of the senate with a very large majority, but again it died on the major state calendar in the house,” he said. “That bill would have put Texas ahead as a national leader in terms of creating jobs in solar energy.”
He said he would like to try again in the next session but hopes that Texas hasn’t been left behind the curve.
Similarly, a bill that he has sponsored for the second time that would ban billboards on Texas 71 passed the Senate but died in the house.
“I really feel, the session as a whole sort of melted down at the end and I’m disappointed for example that the TxDOT Sunset Bill didn’t pass,” he said.
He was also a key player in a bill concerning the Texas Department of Insurance, which also died in the house.