The official website of the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council

Texas Draft State Expenditure Plan (SEP) Available for Public Comment until August 27, 2018

The RESTORE Council is pleased to announce Texas’s draft State Expenditure Plan (SEP), developed pursuant to the Spill Impact Component of the RESTORE Act (commonly referred to as “Bucket 3”), has been posted for public comment and will be available until 5:00 pm Central Time on Monday, August 27, 2018. “Bucket 3” provides funding to the five Gulf Coast states (Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas) for ecosystem restoration, economic recovery, and tourism promotion in the Gulf Coast region. To access these funds, each state must first have a SEP approved by the RESTORE Council. Upon approval of a SEP, the state then applies to the RESTORE Council for grants for activities in the approved plan.
 
Due to the devastating and long-range effects of Hurricane Harvey, Texas Governor Greg Abbott and TCEQ Commissioner Toby Baker have determined this first Texas SEP will focus on hurricane recovery efforts that include ecological and economic, as well as resiliency-related programs.  To proceed in an expedited manner to assist communities continuing to face ecologic and economic challenges posed by Hurricane Harvey, this draft SEP takes a programmatic approach focusing on four key areas: nature-based tourism, water quality and quantity restoration, shoreline and beach restoration, and removal of debris and/or sediment from waterways to address ecological impacts.  After taking public comments into consideration and upon RESTORE Council approval of the SEP, Commissioner Baker, in collaboration with the Office of the Governor, and working with the Governor’s Commission to Rebuild Texas, will select projects to implement the programmatic areas. Collaboration will also include exchanges with federal, state and local elected officials, as well as the public.  Approximately $31 million is currently available to fund activities in an approved Texas SEP.
 
The draft Texas SEP is available at https://www.restorethetexascoast.org.  Written comments should be submitted electronically to TCEQ at rcomments@tceq.texas.gov by the end of the 45-day comment period which closes at 5:00 pm Central Time on Monday, August 27th, 2018.