2025 Texas sessionsRegular and both called sessions have ended. This index covers House and Senate bills, not resolutions. Statuses come from official reports.

2025 · Regular session · House bill

HB1866

HB1866 allows commissioned National Park Service law-enforcement officers, within a national park or national recreation area's boundaries, to execute Texas arrest and search warrants and exercise peace-officer powers under Texas…

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Official caption: Relating to the state law enforcement authority of federal National Park Service law enforcement officers.

Signed by governorSource-checked explanation published

Official report lists House author(s): Lujan, LaHood, Campos, Lopez, Ray. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.

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Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.

Bill highlights

Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.

HB1866 allows commissioned National Park Service law-enforcement officers, within a national park or national recreation area's boundaries, to execute Texas arrest and search warrants and exercise peace-officer powers under Texas's emergency-detention and court-ordered mental-health laws.
Existing authority to arrest, search and seize concerning Texas-law offenses committed in those parks or recreation areas remains.
The mental-health provision incorporates the officer powers in Health and Safety Code Chapters 573 and 574.
The bill received the two-thirds votes required for immediate effect and became effective when signed June 20, 2025—not the September 1 fallback date printed in its conditional effective-date clause.

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What does it do?

HB1866 allows commissioned National Park Service law-enforcement officers, within a national park or national recreation area’s boundaries, to execute Texas arrest and search warrants and exercise peace-officer powers under Texas’s emergency-detention and court-ordered mental-health laws. It expressly preserves the statement that these federal officers are not Texas peace officers. This is a limited grant of specified powers, not general statewide police status. Final law, Section 1.

Existing authority to arrest, search and seize concerning Texas-law offenses committed in those parks or recreation areas remains. The added warrant authority is not limited in the text to warrants for crimes committed inside the park, but execution under the new provision must occur within its boundaries. “National park or national recreation area” uses the National Park System definition referenced in federal law, not every state or local park. Final law; 54 U.S.C. 100102.

The mental-health provision incorporates the officer powers in Health and Safety Code Chapters 573 and 574. Those chapters govern emergency apprehension, detention and court-ordered mental-health services, with their own criteria, documentation, examination, hearing and patient-rights requirements. HB1866 changes who may exercise the specified powers within these federal areas; it does not itself erase those protections or allow detention merely because an officer dislikes someone’s behavior. Chapter 573; Chapter 574.

The bill received the two-thirds votes required for immediate effect and became effective when signed June 20, 2025—not the September 1 fallback date printed in its conditional effective-date clause. Final law, Section 2 and vote certificates; official history.

What changed along the way?

The introduced and House committee texts added warrant and mental-health authority without the final express geographic limit on those new powers. Representative Lujan’s sole indexed amendment, adopted April 23, placed both under “within the boundaries of a national park or national recreation area.” The House-passed, Senate committee and enrolled versions are identical. The broader wording did not become law. Amendment; amendment index; versions.

For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.

Official bill versions

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?

Visitors, people experiencing a mental-health crisis and nearby law-enforcement agencies may benefit when an authorized federal park officer can act without waiting solely for another officer with Texas-law authority. Officers and agencies must coordinate warrant execution and mental-health procedures. Expanded authority also affects people subject to searches, arrest or involuntary detention; the geographic limit and underlying legal safeguards remain important. The bill supplies no measured estimate of response-time improvements or additional detentions.

The May 18, 2025 fiscal note anticipates no significant state fiscal impact, assuming costs and savings would be insignificant, and no local-government fiscal impact. It provides no dollar estimate or quantified two-year or five-year projection.

Official sources

Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.