From the Texas Tribune: Abbott signs first bill of session into law, creating a Texas DOGE

The Bill is SB 14: click here to check it out on TLO.

The bill will amend the Texas Government Code.

It emerged from a report from the Governor’s Small Business Freedom Council.

Here are the other bills signed by the governor so far this session.

- Click here for the article.  

Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday signed the first law of this year’s legislative session, a bill creating a new regulation-cutting agency inspired by Elon Musk’s federal Department of Government Efficiency.

“Texas can have our own DOGE,” Abbott said Wednesday. “What this law is going to do is make government more efficient and less costly.”

Senate Bill 14, which passed both the House and Senate with bipartisan supermajorities, establishes the “Texas Regulatory Efficiency Office” at a cost of $22.8 million over the next five years.

Abbott signed the bill with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, House Speaker Dustin Burrows and the bill’s sponsors — Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, and Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford — by his side.

“The fewer regulations we have, the more efficient they are, the easier they are to understand — is going to help Texas business and economy continue to boom, which is why I'm excited this is the first bill that is being signed,” Burrows said.

With five weeks left in the biennial legislative session, SB 14 is the first bill to reach Abbott’s desk. The Senate and House have each passed other priority measures — including a school voucher program that Patrick put on a glide path last week when he endorsed the House’s proposal — but some, like the budget, differ slightly across chambers and still require final approval before they can go to the governor.