Rep. Morales wants hotel tax used to keep West Texas stars at night big and bright

FAR WEST TEXAS — A new bill proposed in the Texas legislative session would allow Hotel Occupancy Taxes to be used in a new way in Presidio and Brewster counties. Local representative Eddie Morales filed legislation on Friday that could open up Hotel Occupancy Tax funds to be used to preserve the dark skies in Far West Texas. Hours after Morales’ bill was introduced, state Sen. Cesar Blanco filed a companion bill in the Senate.

Under the proposed House Bill 4305, municipalities in Presidio and Brewster County could use revenue from the municipal hotel occupancy tax “for the promotion and preservation of dark skies through construction and maintenance of infrastructure and the purchase and installation of hardware that reduces light pollution and sky glow.” They could improve city or county lighting, or fund projects to improve lighting on private businesses or residences.

While sky quality surveys say the night sky is still well preserved around the Big Bend, recent data has shown a slight increase in light pollution within Brewster and Presidio counties.

“Unchecked, this has the potential to destroy the nightscape and wildlife habitat of one of the last areas of truly dark skies in the United States,” wrote Amber Harrison, the Big Bend Citizen’s Alliance vice president, in a letter of support for the bill.

Hotel Occupancy Tax can be used to support the arts, historic sites, sporting events or advertisements promoting tourism, which all aim to put “heads in beds” by continuing to grow the tourism industry. Harrison said, “The Big Bend is one of the last remaining places in North America where the Milky Way can still be seen and is a major draw for eco- and astro-tourism.” With the skies themselves bringing visitors to West Texas, Morales saw an opportunity to use the hotel tax to bring more tourists, if Texas law were changed to allow it.

According to Chloe Crumley, a program coordinator at the National Parks Conservation Association, around 500,000 tourists visited the Big Bend and Fort Davis National Historic Site in 2019, spending nearly $13 million on lodging and another $7.8 million in restaurants.

“Visitors are coming out to sleep under the stars, go camping or go to star parties and are staying in hotels,” Crumley said. The NPCA’s letter of support suggested “a loss of these resources could mean a loss of revenue or jobs associated with them.

The 2021 House bill is amending and expanding upon legislation passed by Texas Representative Erin Zwiener in 2019 that allows the same tax revenue to be used to preserve dark skies in counties she represents. In Blanco County, HOT funds were used to update lighting on a local hotel, helping dim unnatural lighting and darkening the sky around the Lyndon B. Johnson State Park and Historic Site.

The McDonald Observatory has been doing mitigation since the 1970s, using private funds to purchase shields, fixtures and bulbs that create better conditions to see the stars. Bill Wren, the dark skies initiative coordinator at the observatory, said “There are lots of good lighting installations in the region and lots of poor ones, and it’s the poor ones we’d want to spend that money on.”

“We’ve got thousands of people in the region and thousands of lighting installations,” Wren said. “One facility doesn’t necessarily go from making it a good sky to a bad sky, but it adds up. You have to chip away at it to keep the sky over all of the community nice to look at.”

Broader initiatives to preserve the sky are already ongoing. Jeff Davis County voted unanimously last week to update its lighting ordinance and Wren is working with the International Dark-Sky Association to make the Big Bend region the largest dark-sky preserve in the world.

Morales’ chief of staff, Amy Rister, said the idea for dark-sky-friendly legislation was brought to her by Frontera PR, a company run by Marfa native Daniel Hernandez. While the bill has made its first big step toward becoming law, it still needs to pass through committees, hearings and votes in both chambers of the Legislature before it can become a reality for the City of Marfa or Brewster County, which both collect Hotel Occupancy Tax.

Rep. Morales called the bill “just one other tool in the economic toolkit,” agreeing that the dark skies are an economic driver. It doesn’t mandate spending to preserve dark skies, but opens it up as another option. “I’m all about economic development opportunities, and I think it’d be a great asset and tool to support our district.”