{"id":24959,"date":"2025-04-22T07:19:04","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T12:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/climatechange\/?p=24959"},"modified":"2025-04-23T10:44:36","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T15:44:36","slug":"texas-showdown-over-adapting-to-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/climatechange\/2025\/04\/22\/texas-showdown-over-adapting-to-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside a Texas Showdown Over Cities’ Role in Adapting to Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by nader saremi<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Texas\u2019 Third Court of Appeals will hear arguments tomorrow, April 23, 2025, in a case that cuts to the core of how state and local governments coexist. In Texas v. City of Houston, City of San Antonio, and City of El Paso<\/em><\/a>, a group of Texas cities is challenging one of the most sweeping preemption laws adopted anywhere in the country. That law, the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act<\/a> (TRCA), gives the state nearly total control over a range of issues, including how cities can protect workers from extreme heat and other impacts of climate change. For local policymakers in Texas, the case will shape the options available to enact innovative measures to adapt to a changing climate.<\/p>\n

The Texas Regulatory Consistency Act<\/strong><\/p>\n

The TRCA<\/a> adds language to eight Texas codes preempting city and county regulation of \u201cconduct in a field of regulation that is occupied by a provision\u201d of any of the eight state codes. The amended codes are the Agriculture, Business & Commerce, Finance, Insurance, Labor, Natural Resources, Occupations, and Property Codes. The Act does not specify when a field of regulation will be deemed \u201coccupied,\u201d and statements in Act\u2019s legislative history suggest that was a deliberate choice so that courts would ultimately have to define the TRCA\u2019s scope. The TRCA also creates a private right of action for any person\u2014broadly defined to include individuals and \u201cany legal or commercial entity\u201d\u2014to challenge a local law under the Act, allows prevailing plaintiffs to recover their costs and attorney\u2019s fees, and waives local governments\u2019 sovereign immunity from such suits. Galled by the breadth of the Act and convinced it blows up local governments\u2019 authority in nearly total ways, critics have termed the law the \u201cDeath Star<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Texas House of Representatives\u2019 committee report<\/a> describing the Act\u2019s background and purpose argues that local governments \u201cneed relief from the pressure to duplicate state regulatory and enforcement efforts,\u201d and that \u201cjob creators need a baseline of regulatory consistency across the state.\u201d But critics have pointed out<\/a> that the law was prompted by specific local actions the state wanted to quash, including climate change adaptation measures adopted in Austin<\/a> and Dallas<\/a> requiring employers to give workers regular breaks to help protect them from the effects of extreme heat. The law\u2019s text backs them up: as amended by the TRCA, the Texas Labor Code specifically preempts any local measures concerning \u201cbreaks, employment benefits, [and] scheduling practices,\u201d cutting off Austin and Dallas\u2019 efforts to protect outdoor workers. This is just one of several ways in which the TRCA could limit cities\u2019 ability to protect their residents from the impacts of climate change.<\/p>\n

City Challengers Score an Early Victory<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before the TRCA was scheduled to take effect, the City of Houston sued the state alleging that the law violated the Texas Constitution. The Cities of San Antonio and El Paso later intervened in the case to raise similar arguments. The three cities prevailed in trial court<\/a>, winning a declaration that the TRCA was unconstitutional just days before the law was scheduled to go into effect. (More on that below.)<\/p>\n

The State immediately appealed, automatically staying<\/a> the trial court\u2019s order and allowing the law to take effect as scheduled on September 1, 2023. That appeal is now fully briefed and set for oral argument<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n

Both sides devote considerable time in their briefings to the claims\u2019 ripeness, the cities\u2019 standing, and whether sovereign immunity protects the state. Those arguments are important to this phase of the litigation and it is possible that the appellate court could choose to resolve the case on one of those grounds. But those arguments are not a focus of this post because they are not the arguments most likely to influence similar litigation in other states. In addition, even if the intermediate court tosses the case on jurisdictional grounds, the intense political interest in this case makes it all but certain that the constitutional arguments will ultimately be heard by the Texas Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

The Constitutional Arguments<\/strong><\/p>\n

Texas\u2019s constitution, like many other state constitutions, contains a home rule provision<\/a> that gives certain cities broad power to manage local affairs, with the caveat that the state has ultimate sovereignty over local governments. Under Article 11 \u00a7\u00a05(a) of the Texas Constitution, city charters are \u201csubject to such limitations as may be prescribed by the [State] Legislature, and no charter or any ordinance passed under said charter shall contain any provision inconsistent with the Constitution of the State, or of the general laws enacted by the Legislature of this State.\u201d<\/p>\n

At its core, the challenge to the TRCA is about how far that Constitutional language allows the state to go in limiting local governments\u2019 autonomy. In simple terms, the city challengers\u2014Houston, San Antonio, and El Paso\u2014argue that the TRCA is so broad it effectively eliminates home rule from the Texas system of government. The state\u2019s response is that Texas\u2019 \u201cHome Rule Amendment does not impose a stand-alone limit on the Legislature\u2019s power because the regulatory power granted to home-rule cities has always been subject to being \u2018withdraw[n]\u2019 by the Legislature by general law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three of the cities\u2019 core arguments against the TRCA are worth unpacking in more detail here. First, the cities argue that the Texas Constitution recognizes preemption only where there is an actual conflict between a state law and a local one, because all that is specifically outlawed in the state Constitution is \u201cany [local] provision inconsistent<\/em> with \u2026 the general [state] laws.\u201d As a result, the state cannot preempt whole subjects at all, but rather only the specific matters within a subject that the state has actually addressed in law. Preempting whole fields of regulation, the cities argue, is never allowed. The state takes a broader view of what it means to have enacted state laws, arguing instead that preempting \u201cestablished regulatory fields defined by [enacted] laws\u201d creates a constitutionally sufficient conflict with any local laws on the same subject, even if the specific issue a local law would address is not explicitly named in the state code. If it reaches the issue, the court will have to decide just how narrowly (or broadly) to define a conflict that amounts to preemption under the Texas Constitution.<\/p>\n

Second, the cities argue that the TRCA shifts the burden of proof. They say the state constitution places the burden on the state to invalidate local laws as inconsistent with state law, usually after the local laws are enacted. But under the TRCA, cities now have to prove that their local laws are consistent with state law, possibly before adopting the local laws. The state responds that the cities assume too much about how heavily courts would rely on the wording of the TRCA in deciding a case about whether a local law is preempted. According to the state, no \u201cTRCA provision speaks to burdens of proof,\u201d and even if the TRCA does affect assumed ways of understanding how preemption cases would be litigated, the state points out, the \u201cLegislature can modify \u2026 common-law burdens of proof as it sees fit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Third, the cities argue that by failing to define what the TRCA means by \u201coccupied by a provision,\u201d the TRCA leaves cities with no \u201cworkable standard\u201d to know which local laws are preempted. That\u2019s a problem because courts have held that Texas law requires the state to speak with \u201cunmistakable clarity\u201d when it intends to preempt local law. The State responds that no one has disputed that the State\u2019s intent with TRCA was to preempt local law, and clarity on the state\u2019s intent<\/em> to preempt is all the constitution requires.<\/p>\n

The Outcome<\/strong><\/p>\n

For cities in Texas, the case will have a major bearing on their authority to regulate their own affairs. Any decision is virtually certain to be appealed to the Texas Supreme Court, so a win in the intermediate appellate court may not suggest that the cities will ultimately be successful. But it could free up the city challengers to explore innovative ways of responding to climate change with less risk of preemption, and restore Texas cities previous efforts to protect outdoor workers in extreme heat, especially if the now-pending federal rule on protecting outdoor workers from heat<\/a> fails to do so.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, a win for the state may embolden future Texas legislatures to expand the state\u2019s preemption still further. A bill proposed in this year\u2019s session<\/a> already aims to do just that, expanding on the TRCA to address additional titles in the Texas code, settling any doubt about whether a city bears the burden of proving its rules are not preempted, and enhancing penalties for cities that enact preempted laws. It is possible that the new bill would become law before the court reaches a decision in this case, in which case there may be another round of briefing before the court reaches a decision.<\/p>\n

As communities around the country face accelerating and intensifying climate change challenges, understanding and using all their legal tools to protect those affected are critical. Taking a close look at the way this litigation is unfolding may give cities in other states a head start on designing local laws to be less vulnerable to preemption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texas\u2019 Third Court of Appeals will hear arguments tomorrow, April 23, 2025, in a case that cuts to the core of how state and local governments coexist. In Texas v. City of Houston, City of San Antonio, and City of El Paso, a group of Texas cities is challenging one of the most sweeping preemption […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2659,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68402],"tags":[9429,65711,69748,9430,5665],"class_list":{"0":"post-24959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-cities","7":"tag-adaptation","8":"tag-cities-climate-law-initiative","9":"tag-extreme-heat","10":"tag-litigation","11":"tag-municipal","12":"czr-hentry"},"yoast_head":"\nInside a Texas Showdown Over Cities' Role in Adapting to Climate Change - Climate Law Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Three Texas cities argue that a state law is so broad it effectively eliminates home rule from the Texas system of government.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/climatechange\/2025\/04\/22\/texas-showdown-over-adapting-to-climate-change\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Inside a Texas Showdown Over Cities' Role in Adapting to Climate Change - Climate Law Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Three Texas cities argue that a state law is so broad it effectively eliminates home rule from the Texas system of government.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/climatechange\/2025\/04\/22\/texas-showdown-over-adapting-to-climate-change\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Climate Law Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-04-22T12:19:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-04-23T15:44:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/climatechange\/files\/2025\/04\/nader-saremi-rQAUWXPSaFY-unsplash-1-scaled-e1745423043762.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1638\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1715\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Daniel J. 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