HB2898

HB2898 requires advance notice to the Texas Department of Transportation before erecting a covered wind-measurement tower, and requires the department to share that notice with specified radar facilities, military aviation training facilities and county judges. It also expands the covered tower definition from a base diameter of no more than six feet to no more than 12 feet. The structure must be self-standing or supported by guy wires and anchors, with equipment used to assess a site’s wind resources for a wind turbine generator. Final law.

The person erecting the tower must submit the department’s online form at least 30 days before erection begins. Required information includes the owner’s or operator’s contact details, the site’s latitude, longitude and ground elevation, tower height, proposed starting date and other information the department needs to identify ownership, physical characteristics or location. The owner or operator must report changes to that information.

Within 30 days after receiving the notice, the department must send copies to federally owned or operated radar installations and military aviation training facilities in Texas whose boundaries are within 50 nautical miles of the tower; the judges of Texas counties containing those facilities; and the judges of Texas counties within 25 miles of those facilities. A military aviation training facility is a base, station, fort or camp where any U.S. armed-forces branch regularly conducts aviation training. The two distance rules use different units and measure different relationships.

Existing exclusions remain: structures adjacent to a building, including a barn, or an electric utility substation, and structures in the area immediately associated with a residence, are excluded. Existing painting and marking duties for covered towers 50–200 feet above ground remain; that height range is not expressly repeated as a limit on the new advance-notice duty. Owner/operator registration rules also remain. Violating the section remains a Class C misdemeanor, rising to Class B if the violation results in a collision causing injury or death. Transportation Code Section 21.071.

The law took effect September 1, 2025, after being signed June 20. It specifies notice before new erection, not a new retrospective 30-day notice deadline for towers already standing. It does not replace other applicable aviation requirements. Official history.