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

HB2765

Effective September 1, 2025, HB2765 expands eligibility for the agriculture commissioner's Rural Economic Development and Investment Program.

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Official caption: Relating to the Rural Economic Development and Investment Program and the Texas economic development fund.

Became law without signatureSource-checked explanation published

Official report lists House author(s): Guillen. 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.

Effective September 1, 2025, HB2765 expands eligibility for the agriculture commissioner's Rural Economic Development and Investment Program.
The program's listed projects now expressly include attracting mineral-extraction activities.
For the Texas economic development fund, the act makes the listed authorized program purposes alternatives by changing “and” to “or.” It also permits additional loans and grants from any money in the fund, subject to the retained reserve—not just recycling principal and interest payments.
The former combined $1 million cumulative cap on loans and grants to one person is replaced by two different limits: cumulative grants to a person may not exceed $1 million, while the person's aggregate outstanding loans at any time may not exceed $1 million.
The maximum loan term remains 20 years, but the law removes the requirement for monthly principal-and-interest payments beginning within 90 days.
Important unchanged safeguards remain: grant recipients must provide matching funds equal to 25% of the grant, and the department must retain at least 25% of the fund's January 1, 2017 balance.

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What does it do?

Effective September 1, 2025, HB2765 expands eligibility for the agriculture commissioner’s Rural Economic Development and Investment Program. The maximum eligible county population rises from 75,000 to 200,000; the city limit stays at 50,000. The law adds utilities owned by qualifying cities, other political subdivisions—including special districts—wholly or partly in qualifying counties, and other lenders primarily representing a qualifying county or city. The program still depends on funds appropriated for that purpose. Final law

The program’s listed projects now expressly include attracting mineral-extraction activities. The incorporated definition covers exploring, extracting, processing, transporting, wholesaling or trading elemental minerals and associated alloys/ores, plus supporting supplies and services. It is not an express addition of every oil, gas or electricity project. Existing land, water/waste-disposal, transportation and other qualifying rural-development categories remain. Incorporated mineral definition, subsection (6)

For the Texas economic development fund, the act makes the listed authorized program purposes alternatives by changing “and” to “or.” It also permits additional loans and grants from any money in the fund, subject to the retained reserve—not just recycling principal and interest payments.

The former combined $1 million cumulative cap on loans and grants to one person is replaced by two different limits: cumulative grants to a person may not exceed $1 million, while the person’s aggregate outstanding loans at any time may not exceed $1 million. The loan cap measures money still outstanding, not all loans ever received. These are ceilings, not promises of an award or an automatic $2 million entitlement.

The maximum loan term remains 20 years, but the law removes the requirement for monthly principal-and-interest payments beginning within 90 days. The department may adopt repayment rules for loans or grants. It does not forgive existing debt or declare every grant repayable on a particular schedule. The amended loan/grant provisions apply only to awards made on or after September 1, 2025.

Important unchanged safeguards remain: grant recipients must provide matching funds equal to 25% of the grant, and the department must retain at least 25% of the fund’s January 1, 2017 balance. Program-specific repayment and implementation rules also still matter; broader eligibility alone does not guarantee financing. Fund limitations; rural program framework

What changed along the way?

The filed bill would also have expressly listed energy generation, transmission and distribution facilities as eligible infrastructure projects. The House committee substitute removed that added category; the deletion survived in the final law. This means the proposed express listing was not enacted—not that the bill categorically bars every energy-related project under any other authority. Filed text; all versions

The House committee, House-passed, Senate committee and final operative texts match. The amendment index lists no floor amendments; the material change was a committee substitute. The House passed it 104–27, with three present but not voting; the Senate passed it 25–6. It became law without the governor’s signature June 20, 2025. Official history

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?

Newly eligible counties, local entities and lenders may obtain access to rural-development financing. Recipients may benefit from more flexible repayment terms and separate grant/outstanding-loan ceilings. The state fund bears lending and repayment risk, and grants still require a recipient match. Neither eligibility nor flexible terms guarantees a project, job or economic return.

The May 18 fiscal note says state and local fiscal effects cannot be determined because potential loans, grants and repayments are unknown. It says the bill makes no appropriation, though it could support a future appropriation. TDA expects administrative costs to fit existing resources; that does not make the overall financial effect zero. The note identifies the retained fund balance as $2,225,593, reflecting the statutory historical-balance formula, not a new appropriation.

The fiscal note’s general description refers to “two categories” of added projects, but the final text controls: the explicit energy-facility category was removed in committee. The reviewed fiscal notes do not provide a quantified multiyear projection of net costs, repayments or economic benefits.

Official sources

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