Texas Food, Resource, and Commodity Assurance Act

90TH LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS Regular Session 2027

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H.B. ____

BY __________ (Introduced by request)

AN ACT RELATING TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A STATE PROGRAM FOR FOOD AND COMMODITY ASSURANCE TO ENSURE THE MATERIAL SECURITY OF ALL TEXAS RESIDENTS; AMENDING THE AGRICULTURE CODE AND THE HUMAN RESOURCES CODE; MAKING APPROPRIATIONS; AND PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE.

A BILL FOR AN ACT

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

LEGISLATIVE ROUTING NOTE

Texas does not have a citizen initiative process. This bill must be introduced by a member of the Texas House of Representatives or the Texas Senate and passed through the standard legislative process.

The Texas Legislature meets in regular session every two years for one hundred forty (140) days, convening on the second Tuesday of January in odd-numbered years. Special sessions may be called by the Governor for up to thirty (30) days each, limited to topics specified in the Governor's proclamation.

The 89th Legislature convened January 14, 2025, and adjourned its regular session June 2, 2025. This bill is prepared for introduction in the 90th Regular Session, convening January 2027. If a bill misses the session window, it must wait until the next regular session, two full years.

COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENT: Upon introduction, this bill would likely be assigned to the House Agriculture and Livestock Committee or the Senate Agriculture Committee. Given its fiscal impact, it may also be referred to the House Appropriations Committee or the Senate Finance Committee.

FISCAL NOTE: The Legislative Budget Board (LBB) prepares fiscal notes for all bills with budgetary impact per House and Senate rules. The Comptroller of Public Accounts must certify that funds are available before the Governor may sign appropriations.

FLOOR VOTE: Simple majority in each chamber (76 of 150 Representatives; 16 of 31 Senators). Governor's signature, or veto override by two-thirds of each chamber, per Article IV, Section 14, Texas Constitution.

BIENNIAL SESSION: Texas's biennial legislative calendar means this proposal must be ready when the 90th Regular Session opens in January 2027. There is no second chance until 2029 absent a special session called by the Governor.

FISCAL FRAMEWORK: Texas has no state income tax. Revenue derives from sales tax (6.25 percent state rate plus up to 2 percent local), property tax, oil and gas severance taxes, and federal funds. The 2026-2027 biennial budget totals approximately three hundred thirty-eight billion dollars ($338,000,000,000) in all funds, of which Senate Bill 1 authorizes approximately one hundred seventy-seven billion four hundred sixty million dollars ($177,460,000,000) in General-Revenue-related spending. This proposal operates within Texas's no-income-tax structure. Oil and gas severance tax revenue and the Economic Stabilization Fund are relevant existing revenue streams.

ANTI-FEDERAL-DEPENDENCY FRAMING: This bill reduces Texas's dependence on federal programs including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid emergency room utilization, and federal disaster relief. Texas paying for Texans is structurally less expensive than Texas depending on Washington. Every dollar spent on state food assurance reduces federal dependency by an estimated two to three dollars in downstream costs.

HISTORY: The original version of this proposal was first developed in 2016 by Imran Stanton Cooper, through the Sassafras and Maple Research Foundation (SMRF), the first non-partisan political trade school in the United States, registered with the Colorado Department of Higher Education, Division of Private Occupational Schools (DPOS). The original proposal was drafted for the State of Colorado and was sidelined during the 2016-2017 legislative cycle. The present Texas version incorporates research from the Historical Apoplexy series (Cooper, 2025-2026), a ten-paper academic work providing the evidentiary foundation for this legislation.

LEGISLATIVE DECLARATION

SECTION 1. LEGISLATIVE FINDINGS AND DECLARATION.

(A) The Legislature of the State of Texas hereby finds, determines, and declares that:

FINDINGS RELATING TO THE STRUCTURAL IMPERATIVE FOR STATE ACTION:

(A0) The federal government is structurally overloaded. There have been twenty-two federal shutdowns since 1976, including a forty-three-day shutdown in 2025, the longest in United States history, which furloughed approximately six hundred seventy thousand (670,000) federal employees. The United States House of Representatives has been frozen at four hundred thirty-five (435) members since 1929, leaving approximately seven hundred sixty-two thousand (762,000) constituents per representative. Federal H.R. 1 (2025) shifted SNAP administrative costs from a fifty percent to a seventy-five percent state share. Texas possesses the authority to act under its own legislative power and need not wait on a federal apparatus that is structurally incapable of acting at the necessary scale or cadence (Cooper, Paper VII, 2026);

(A0a) THE MULTI-EXECUTIVE PRECEDENT. The single-point overload described above is the deviation, not the norm. The Swiss Federal Council has operated a seven-member executive with a rotating one-year presidency since 1848, one hundred seventy-eight years, sustaining citizen trust above eighty percent. The Roman Republic ran paired consuls for four hundred eighty-two years. Collegial, distributed governance is the documented historical baseline; the contemporary federal overload is a structural failure a state need not replicate and need not wait upon (Cooper, Paper VII, 2026);

(u25) UNIVERSE 25 REBUTTAL. The Calhoun mouse experiment ("Universe 25") is frequently invoked against any abundance-distribution proposal. The argument is a misread. Calhoun's mice collapsed not because they had abundance, but because abundance arrived without institutional infrastructure: food, water, nesting material, and space, with no education, no governance, no intergenerational transmission, no civic role. Abundance of resources plus abundance of ease produces Universe 25. Abundance of resources plus structured civic obligation produces the Augustus annona (400 years), the Defense Commissary (159 years), and the Mabu Co settlement (800 years). The Roman grain dole was distributed to citizens who had civic obligations: military service, public works, jury duty, voting. The commissary is distributed to military families inside an institution that defines daily structure. The institutional scaffolding is what distinguishes sustainable abundance from collapse. Joint Base San Antonio (Fort Sam Houston, Lackland Air Force Base, Randolph Air Force Base), Fort Cavazos (formerly Fort Hood), Fort Bliss, Dyess Air Force Base, Goodfellow Air Force Base, and Sheppard Air Force Base operate this template on Texas soil today, serving over two hundred twenty thousand active-duty personnel and their families;

(A1) DENIAL IS NO LONGER NEUTRAL. Inaction by a legislature possessing the authority, the capacity, and the documented need to act constitutes active harm. The burden rests on denial;

FINDINGS RELATING TO TEXAS'S PRODUCTIVE CAPACITY AND THE PARADOX OF ABUNDANCE:

(1) Texas is the number one agricultural state in the United States by total number of farms and ranches, with more than two hundred forty-eight thousand (248,000) operations. Texas is the number one producer of cattle, the number one producer of cotton, a top three producer of dairy, and a leading producer of pecans, watermelons, onions, cabbage, spinach, and grapefruit. Texas agricultural output exceeds twenty-five billion dollars ($25,000,000,000) annually at the farm gate. The Rio Grande Valley produces large volumes of fresh produce. The Texas Panhandle contains the largest concentration of feedlots and grain production in the nation. East Texas produces poultry and timber at industrial scale;

(2) Texas is the number one energy-producing state in the United States, leading in oil production, natural gas production, wind energy generation, and rapidly expanding solar capacity. Texas produces more energy than most sovereign nations. The state's energy infrastructure represents a productive capacity that dwarfs domestic consumption;

(3) Despite this abundance, approximately one in six Texans, more than five million (5,000,000) people, experience food insecurity. As of 2023, Texas's food insecurity rate was seventeen and six-tenths percent (17.6%) (Feeding America, Map the Meal Gap). Texas has the largest absolute number of food-insecure residents of any state, a food-insecure population larger than California's;

(4) An estimated five hundred thousand (500,000) Texans live in colonias, unincorporated communities along the Texas-Mexico border that lack running water, sewage systems, paved roads, and basic infrastructure. These communities exist in the number one energy-producing, number one cattle-producing, and number two manufacturing state in America. The colonia paradox, third-world conditions in the state with the most productive capacity, is not a failure of resources but a failure of distribution;

(5) On February 13-17, 2021, Winter Storm Uri caused catastrophic grid failure across Texas. The Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed two hundred forty-six (246) deaths across seventy-seven (77) counties, with independent estimates suggesting the true toll may exceed seven hundred (700). People froze to death in their homes in the number one energy-producing state in America because the deregulated electricity market carried no weatherization mandate and held no resilience reserve. Those who died were disproportionately elderly, disabled, low-income, and residents of manufactured housing. Survival was distributed by economic position, the same gradient mechanism documented in the Whitehall Studies;

(6) The United States possesses approximately two hundred ninety-three thousand (293,000) manufacturing establishments, with studies indicating nineteen and five-tenths to twenty-nine and three-tenths times (19.5-29.3x) the manufacturing capacity required for universal provision of consumer goods, operating at approximately seventy-seven percent (77%) capacity utilization. Texas has the second-most manufacturing establishments of any state, trailing only California. Unlike the Rust Belt states, Texas still has its factories: energy, aerospace, semiconductor, automotive, defense, and petrochemical manufacturing operate at massive scale across the state;

(7) The United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service Food Dollar Series documents that the farm share of every consumer food dollar is twenty-four and three-tenths cents ($0.243), with the remaining seventy-five and seven-tenths cents ($0.757) allocated to marketing, processing, distribution, and retail margins. The total production cost of all United States staple foods is approximately two hundred thirteen billion dollars ($213,000,000,000) per year. The total markup is approximately four hundred ninety-six billion dollars ($496,000,000,000) per year (Cooper, Paper III, 2025);

(8) Approximately forty-seven and nine-tenths million (47,900,000) Americans are food insecure. The estimated cost to close the food insecurity gap is approximately thirty-two billion dollars ($32,000,000,000) per year, six and five-tenths percent (6.5%) of the annual markup. The cost to feed every food-insecure American is a fraction of what the nation spends on the permission system that prevents them from eating;

(9) The United States Military Commissary system, established by the Commissary Act of 1867 (10 U.S.C. Section 2484), has operated below-retail food distribution for one hundred fifty-nine (159) years. The Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) operates two hundred thirty-six (236) stores serving more than two and eight-tenths million (2,800,000) authorized users, delivering seventeen to twenty-five percent (17-25%) savings within the continental United States and up to sixty-four percent (64%) savings at overseas installations. Texas has among the most military installations and commissaries of any state: Fort Cavazos (formerly Fort Hood), Fort Bliss, Joint Base San Antonio (Lackland AFB, Randolph AFB, Fort Sam Houston), Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, and numerous other installations. The proof model for below-retail food distribution is already operating at massive scale on Texas soil, funded by all taxpayers, accessible only to military personnel and their families;

(10) In 1925, German geographer Albrecht Penck of the University of Berlin calculated that Earth could sustain eight billion (8,000,000,000) people with the agricultural technology of that era. The world population at the time was approximately two billion (2,000,000,000), representing a four-to-one (4:1) margin. One hundred years later, with agricultural yields per acre having increased by multiples, the margin has grown wider. Scarcity in the United States is maintained through policy and monetary gatekeeping, not productive limitation;

(11) Jacque Fresco, in Designing the Future (2007), articulated the resource library model: a three-tiered distribution system in which food is classified as constant (replenished continuously), clothing as semi-permanent (replaced periodically), and durable goods as permanent (checked out and returned). Currency survives for the luxury tier. This model has been independently validated by the operational structure of military commissaries, public libraries, and tool-lending libraries already operating within the United States;

(12) The retail sector is contracting. Twenty-five (25) major retail bankruptcies occurred in 2023. Forty-five (45) occurred in 2024, an eighty percent (80%) increase. More than fifteen thousand (15,000) retail store closures were projected for 2025 (Coresight Research). Fifty-four million (54,000,000) Americans live in food deserts. South Dallas, East Houston, the Rio Grande Valley colonias, West Texas, and the rural Panhandle all contain documented food desert communities. The retail distribution model is failing on its own terms;

(12a) Augustus Caesar formalized the annona civica, a monthly grain distribution to approximately two hundred thousand Roman citizens, as permanent infrastructure beginning circa twenty-seven (27) B.C. Augustus was a documented tyrant: the proscriptions killed roughly three hundred senators, and Suetonius records him ordering a Roman knight named Pinarius stabbed on the spot for taking notes at a public assembly. Even a ruler who would have a man killed for taking notes understood that hungry citizens are broken infrastructure. The annona operated more than four hundred years. The emperor Nerva expanded it with the alimenta, state-funded rural loans whose interest was redirected to feed destitute children; the bronze accounting tablet, the Tabula Alimentaria from Veleia (CIL XI 1147), still exists and can be examined in the Parma Museum. The Mabu Co settlement on the Tibetan Plateau sustained sedentary abundance for roughly eight hundred years beginning four thousand four hundred years ago (Nature Ecology and Evolution, September 2024). The freshwater fern Azolla sequestered enough atmospheric carbon to help flip Earth from hothouse to icehouse roughly forty-nine million years ago (Brinkhuis et al., Nature 441, 2006). Three independent records converge: the military commissary at one hundred fifty-nine years, the annona at more than four hundred years, and biological precedent across geologic time (Cooper, Papers I and VIII, 2025-2026);

(12b) THE CAPITALISM DISTINCTION. This Act does not place Texas agriculture, food processing, or distribution under government ownership. It is not the municipal-grocery model, the city-owned and city-operated store of the kind piloted in New York City under Mayor Mamdani. The commission established by this Act contracts with private Texas producers, ranchers, and processors at cost plus a five percent surcharge, the operating model the Defense Commissary Agency has used since 1867 and the near-cost, volume-purchasing model the Costco membership warehouse uses in the private market. Farms stay private. Trucks stay private. Processing stays private. The State operates the distribution point at cost. Currency survives for every good above the staple floor;

(12c) The retail collapse and autonomous freight are already eliminating distribution jobs independent of this Act. Aurora operates driverless freight on the Dallas-to-Houston corridor today. This Act catches displaced workers rather than displacing them: at-cost distribution eliminates the markup, not the distribution labor. The military commissary employs truck drivers, stockers, and clerks; what it does not add is the profit margin layered on top of that labor;

FINDINGS RELATING TO PUBLIC HEALTH: WHY THIS ACT REACHES BEYOND BARE SURVIVAL:

(13) Michael Marmot's Whitehall Studies (1978, 1991), studying ten thousand three hundred eight (10,308) British civil servants, all employed, all with National Health Service coverage, none in absolute poverty, found that the lowest-grade civil servants had three times (3x) the mortality rate of the highest grade. Standard risk factors including smoking, cholesterol, and blood pressure explained less than forty percent (40%) of the gradient. The single largest factor was low control at work. The gradient applied to heart disease, cancer, lung disease, depression, and suicide. Hierarchy itself is lethal, independent of poverty, deprivation, or healthcare access;

(14) Robert Sapolsky's thirty-year studies of wild baboon populations in the Serengeti demonstrated that subordinate status causes elevated cortisol, atherosclerosis, and impaired stress recovery. When a tuberculosis outbreak killed the dominant aggressive males in one troop, the hierarchy collapsed, and the surviving subordinates' cortisol levels and cardiovascular markers normalized. The biology followed the social structure;

(15) Carol Shively's thirty-year studies of female macaques at Wake Forest University demonstrated that subordinate status causes visceral fat accumulation, atherosclerosis, and heart disease through a cingulate cortex serotonin pathway linking depression to cardiovascular failure. Hierarchy literally causes heart attacks;

(16) Elizabeth Blackburn received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for demonstrating that chronic psychological stress shortens telomeres, the protective caps on chromosomal DNA. Caregivers of chronically ill children had measurably shorter telomeres. Poverty and social subordination age human beings at the cellular level;

(16a) THE GRADIENT IS THE DISEASE. Across four research programs, six decades, and three species, the finding is consistent: the gap is the gradient, not the deprivation alone. Position within the hierarchy is itself the pathogen. Treating illness downstream of an untreated gradient is documented to fail. This is why a food assurance program is a public health instrument: it compresses the material gradient that the Whitehall, Serengeti, and macaque research shows to be lethal. Hierarchy itself kills (Cooper, Paper V, 2026);

(16b) THE CORRECTED STRUCTURAL CRITIQUE. Bowles and Gintis (1976) named a real disease at the wrong site. They identified socioeconomic stratification as self-reproducing across generations but assigned the schools the causal role. Stratification is the ocean, not the cup. It permeates housing, diet, healthcare, employment, and criminal justice alike; no single institution is the engine. The gradient is the disease, and it runs through every institution. The corrected critique requires no villain and discredits no profession, which is why it is deliverable across the political spectrum (Cooper, Paper V, 2026);

(17) Winter Storm Uri was the Whitehall Study made geographic. The number one energy-producing state let its population freeze because the grid was deregulated without weatherization mandates or resilience reserves. Survival was distributed by economic position: those with resources survived, those without died. The energy was physically present in Texas. The distribution system failed. This is the same dynamic as the grocery proof: productive capacity exists, and the markup-and-distribution system is where the harm occurs;

(18) An estimated five hundred thousand (500,000) Texans live in colonias without running water, sewage, or paved roads. The biological mechanism is identical to Sapolsky's baboon studies: chronic subordination in colonias produces elevated cortisol, cardiovascular damage, and accelerated telomere degradation regardless of ethnicity or culture. The gradient is the mechanism. One can drive from a five-million-dollar ranch house to a colonia with no sewage in twenty minutes along the Rio Grande;

(19) The Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee's 2024 Biennial Report found that eighty percent (80%) of pregnancy-related deaths in Texas are preventable. Texas has among the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world. The removal of health infrastructure from lower-gradient populations produces exactly the mortality that Marmot's research predicts;

(20) Texas has the highest rate of uninsured residents in the United States. The United States Census Bureau American Community Survey reported a rate of sixteen and seven-tenths percent (16.7%) in 2024, representing more than five million (5,000,000) people lacking health insurance coverage. The hierarchy gradient operates regardless of insurance status; Marmot documented it within a British civil service that had universal National Health Service coverage. A food assurance program therefore reaches a population that insurance status alone does not;

(21) Texas has among the highest rates of senior food insecurity in the nation, with an estimated thirteen and six-tenths percent (13.6%) of Texas seniors at risk for hunger. The intersection of food insecurity, uninsured status, and the hierarchy gradient produces compounding health effects that a food floor addresses at the nutritional substrate where all biological function begins;

(B) The Legislature further finds that:

(1) Texas feeds the nation. Texas powers the nation. Texas sends humans to space from NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. Texans taking care of Texans is the most Texan thing possible. When Hurricane Harvey struck in 2017, causing one hundred twenty-five billion dollars ($125,000,000,000) in damage and flooding more than three hundred thousand (300,000) structures, the federal response was slow. Texans rescued Texans. The Cajun Navy and neighbors with boats did what government did not. This bill formalizes into law what Texans already do informally during disaster: take care of each other;

(2) This Act reduces federal dependency. Every dollar Texas spends on state food assurance reduces demand for federal SNAP benefits, federal Medicaid emergency room reimbursements, and federal disaster relief. Texas paying for Texans is structurally cheaper than Texas depending on Washington. Denial is no longer neutral.

SECTION 2. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the "Texas Food, Resource, and Commodity Assurance Act."

SECTION 3. PURPOSE. The purpose of this Act is to establish a state-operated, below-retail food and commodity distribution system modeled on the United States Military Commissary system, adapted to civilian operation, and designed to ensure that no Texas resident experiences food insecurity due to economic position within the state's hierarchy.

SECTION 4. DEFINITIONS. In this Act:

(1) "Resource Library" means a public facility operated by the Texas Food and Commodity Assurance Commission that distributes food, household goods, and durable items to qualified residents using a tiered access model.

(2) "Constant goods" means food, water, nutritional supplements, and other items requiring continuous replenishment, distributed without charge to qualified residents.

(3) "Semi-permanent goods" means clothing, household textiles, personal care items, and other goods requiring periodic replacement, distributed on a scheduled rotation basis.

(4) "Permanent goods" means durable items including tools, appliances, electronics, furniture, and other goods of lasting utility, distributed through a checked-out-and-returned lending model analogous to public library operations.

(5) "Commission" means the Texas Food and Commodity Assurance Commission established under Section 5 of this Act.

(6) "Qualified resident" means any individual who is a resident of the State of Texas. The food and commodity assurance program established by this Act is a universal floor; access is not conditioned on income, employment, or any means test.

(7) "Below-retail distribution" means the provision of goods at or near production cost, excluding retail markup, advertising costs, and shareholder profit margins, following the operational model of the Defense Commissary Agency.

SECTION 5. TEXAS FOOD AND COMMODITY ASSURANCE COMMISSION.

(a) There is hereby established the Texas Food and Commodity Assurance Commission as an agency of the State of Texas, administered under the Texas Department of Agriculture.

(b) The Commission shall consist of nine (9) members appointed as follows: (1) Three (3) members appointed by the Governor; (2) Two (2) members appointed by the Lieutenant Governor; (3) Two (2) members appointed by the Speaker of the House; (4) One (1) member appointed by the Commissioner of Agriculture; (5) One (1) member appointed by the Chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, representing the AgriLife Extension network.

(c) Members shall serve staggered four-year terms. No member shall serve more than two (2) consecutive terms.

(d) The Commission shall have the authority to: (1) Establish and operate Resource Libraries throughout the state; (2) Negotiate direct purchasing agreements with Texas agricultural producers, ranchers, and manufacturers; (3) Coordinate with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service for distribution to all two hundred fifty-four (254) counties; (4) Establish quality standards, food safety protocols, and operational procedures; (5) Enter into agreements with existing military commissary operations for operational consultation and supply chain coordination.

SECTION 6. RESOURCE LIBRARY ESTABLISHMENT AND OPERATIONS.

(a) The Commission shall establish Resource Libraries according to the following schedule: (1) Phase I (Years 1-2): Resource Libraries in the ten (10) counties with the highest food insecurity rates, including but not limited to counties along the Texas-Mexico border containing colonia communities; (2) Phase II (Years 3-4): Resource Libraries in all counties with food insecurity rates exceeding fifteen percent (15%); (3) Phase III (Years 5-8): Resource Libraries in all two hundred fifty-four (254) counties, utilizing existing AgriLife Extension facilities, community college campuses, and municipal infrastructure where available.

(b) Each Resource Library shall operate the three-tiered distribution model: (1) CONSTANT TIER: Food, water, and nutritional items distributed continuously without charge. Inventory replenished daily or as consumption requires. Sourced preferentially from Texas agricultural producers; (2) SEMI-PERMANENT TIER: Clothing and household goods distributed on scheduled rotation. Inventory managed by seasonal and demographic demand analysis; (3) PERMANENT TIER: Durable goods distributed through a lending model. Items checked out, used, and returned. Maintenance and repair services provided on-site or through contracted Texas manufacturers.

(c) Resource Libraries shall operate at or near production cost. The retail markup documented by the USDA Food Dollar Series, seventy-five and seven-tenths percent (75.7%) of each consumer food dollar, shall not apply to Resource Library operations. The Commission shall target a maximum operational overhead of fifteen percent (15%) above production cost, consistent with military commissary operational benchmarks.

(d) Currency and the existing retail market shall continue to operate for luxury goods, specialty items, and consumer preferences that exceed Resource Library standard offerings. This Act does not eliminate the private retail market. It provides an alternative distribution channel for essential goods.

SECTION 7. COLONIA PRIORITY DESIGNATION.

(a) The Commission shall designate all recognized colonia communities along the Texas-Mexico border as Priority One distribution zones.

(b) Priority One designation requires: (1) Resource Library establishment within twelve (12) months of Commission activation; (2) Mobile distribution units operating weekly until permanent facilities are established; (3) Coordination with the Texas Water Development Board, the Office of the Secretary of State's colonia initiatives, and county infrastructure programs to ensure that Resource Library facilities include potable water access and sanitary facilities.

(c) The Legislature finds that approximately five hundred thousand (500,000) Texans living in colonias without running water, sewage, or paved roads, in the number one energy-producing and number one cattle-producing state in America, constitutes a documented public health and infrastructure emergency that this Act addresses as its first operational priority.

SECTION 8. SUPPLY CHAIN AND TEXAS-FIRST PROCUREMENT.

(a) The Commission shall establish a Texas-First Procurement Policy requiring that not less than seventy percent (70%) of constant-tier goods be sourced from Texas agricultural producers, ranchers, and food processors.

(b) The Commission shall negotiate direct purchasing agreements that bypass retail markup chains, purchasing at or near farm-gate prices as documented by the USDA Economic Research Service.

(c) The Commission may coordinate with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice agricultural operations, the Texas A&M AgriLife Research facilities, and state university agricultural programs to supplement supply chain capacity.

SECTION 9. FISCAL PROVISIONS.

(a) The Legislature shall appropriate from general revenue and available funds an initial biennial allocation of not less than two billion dollars ($2,000,000,000) for the establishment and first two years of operation of the Texas Food and Commodity Assurance Commission and the Phase I Resource Libraries. This establishment allocation is approximately one and one-tenth percent (1.1%) of annual General-Revenue-related spending.

(b) Subsequent biennial appropriations shall be determined by the Legislative Budget Board based on operational costs, enrollment, and the county expansion schedule.

(c) The Comptroller of Public Accounts shall identify revenue offsets including but not limited to: (1) Reduced state expenditure on SNAP administration and supplementation; (2) Reduced Medicaid emergency room utilization attributable to improved nutrition; (3) Reduced state emergency relief expenditure for food distribution during declared disasters; (4) Oil and gas severance tax revenue designated for this purpose.

(d) THE FEDERAL SNAP COST-SHIFT. Federal H.R. 1 (2025) increased the state share of SNAP administrative costs from fifty percent to seventy-five percent, effective October 1, 2026 [SOURCE: Public Law 119-21, 2025]. Texas routes SNAP benefits through commercial retail, where 75.7 cents of every food dollar pays for markup [SOURCE: USDA Economic Research Service, Food Dollar Series, 2023]. Routed at cost through this Act, approximately ninety-five cents of each dollar reaches recipients as food, a 3.9-fold increase in food delivered per SNAP dollar that independently offsets the federal cost-shift.

(e) THE FOOD PROGRAM TARGET. The at-cost food and commodity assurance program established by this Act, serving Texas's population of approximately thirty-one million seven hundred thousand (31,700,000) residents [SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau, July 2025 population estimate], requires at full statewide operation approximately nine billion seven hundred ninety-five million dollars ($9,795,000,000) per year at production cost. This figure is the base-minimum basket, three hundred nine dollars ($309) per person per year, twenty-five staple food and commodity items priced at thirty percent of cheapest retail per the USDA Food Dollar Series methodology [SOURCE: Historical Apoplexy fiscal baseline tables, Table 2, 2026]. Against Texas's General-Revenue-related spending of approximately eighty-eight billion seven hundred million dollars ($88,700,000,000) per year [SOURCE: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, 2026-27 budget certification, SB 1], the program target is approximately eleven percent (11%) of annual General-Revenue-related spending. The full-baseline basket, six hundred nine dollars ($609) per person per year (Table 1), would require approximately nineteen billion three hundred million dollars ($19,300,000,000) per year and is retained as the program's expansion goal. This Act operates within Texas's existing revenue structure without a state income tax.

(f) THE FISCAL CONVERGENCE. The arithmetic and the operating record converge on the same conclusion. Ending the food gap costs a single-digit-to-low percentage of the markup that the State and its residents already pay above production cost. The operational template has run for one hundred fifty-nine years, since 1867, inside the same federal apparatus the State already funds through its taxpayers: the military commissary, operating on more installations in Texas than in any other state. Texas is not asked to attempt something untested. Texas is asked to deliver to its own residents what its veterans have received since 1867.

(g) THE COST OF NOT ACTING. Texas currently spends on SNAP supplementation, Medicaid emergency room utilization, disaster food relief, and chronic disease management, all of which are downstream consequences of the conditions this Act addresses at their source. Prevention is less expensive than treatment.

(h) THE FISCAL LOCK. The argument that Texas cannot afford this program is refuted by the State's existing expenditure on the less efficient version of the same system, while the State absorbs a federal SNAP cost-shift it did not request. The fiscal question is not whether to spend, but whether to continue spending several times as much as required to accomplish the same objective. Denial is no longer neutral.

GENERAL PROVISIONS

SECTION 10. SEVERABILITY. If any provision of this Act or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the invalidity does not affect other provisions or applications of this Act that can be given effect without the invalid provision or application, and to that end the provisions of this Act are severable.

SECTION 11. IMPLEMENTATION TIMELINE.

(a) Upon passage and signing by the Governor: (1) Months 1-6: the Commission is established, leadership is appointed, and operational planning is initiated; (2) Months 7-12: Phase I Resource Libraries are opened in Priority One colonia communities and the highest-need counties; mobile distribution units begin weekly operation in colonia communities pending permanent facilities; (3) Year 2: Phase I is fully operational; Phase II planning begins; (4) Years 3-4: Phase II Resource Libraries become operational in all counties with food insecurity rates exceeding fifteen percent (15%); (5) Years 5-8: Phase III achieves full two hundred fifty-four (254) county coverage.

(b) The Legislative Budget Board shall review implementation progress and fiscal impact at each biennial session and adjust appropriations accordingly.

SECTION 12. EFFECTIVE DATE.

(a) This Act takes effect September 1, 2027, the beginning of the state fiscal year following passage during the 90th Regular Session.

(b) The Commission established under Section 5 shall begin operations no later than March 1, 2028.

REFERENCES

The research and citations underpinning this Act are drawn from the Historical Apoplexy series (Cooper, 2025-2026), a ten-paper academic work, and the independent sources cited therein:

PRODUCTIVE CAPACITY AND FOOD ECONOMICS: - Penck, A. (1925). Earth carrying capacity calculations. University of Berlin. - USDA Economic Research Service. Food Dollar Series (annual). Farm share $0.243; marketing share $0.757. - Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA). Commissary Act of 1867, 10 U.S.C. Section 2484. 236 stores, 2.8M+ authorized users. - Cooper, I. (2025). "The Mathematics of Abundance: Two Proofs That Scarcity Is a Policy Choice." Factory Proof: approximately 293,000 manufacturing establishments, 19.5-29.3x overcapacity. Grocery Proof: $32B per year to close the food gap, 6.5 percent of the annual markup. - Cooper, I. (2026). Historical Apoplexy fiscal baseline tables. Table 1 ($609/person/year) and Table 2 ($309/person/year). - Fresco, J. (2007). Designing the Future. Resource library model. - Galbraith, J.K. (1958). The Affluent Society. Private opulence, public squalor. - Veblen, T. (1899). The Theory of the Leisure Class. - Veblen, T. (1921). The Engineers and the Price System. - Coresight Research. U.S. retail store closure tracking, 2023-2025.

HIERARCHY AND HEALTH: - Marmot, M. Whitehall Studies (1978, 1991). 10,308 civil servants. 3x mortality gradient. Low control as the primary factor. - Marmot, M. (2004). The Status Syndrome. - Sapolsky, R.M. Thirty-year baboon studies. Cortisol normalization after hierarchy collapse. - Sapolsky, R.M. (2017). Behave. - Shively, C.A. (2009). Social Stress and Coronary Artery Atherosclerosis. Cingulate cortex serotonin pathway. - Blackburn, E. (2009 Nobel Prize). Telomere shortening under chronic stress. - Bowles, S. and Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in Capitalist America. The targeting error corrected by Cooper, Paper V (2026). - Texas DSHS. Winter Storm Uri final report. 246 deaths, 77 counties. - Texas MMMRC. 2024 Biennial Report. 80 percent of maternal deaths preventable. - Feeding America. Map the Meal Gap (2024). Texas 17.6 percent food insecurity rate.

HISTORICAL AND STRUCTURAL: - Cooper, I. (2025-2026). Historical Apoplexy. Papers I-X. - Cooper, I. (2026). The Structural Overload, Paper VII. - Cooper, I. (2026). Venus Prime, Paper VIII. - Cooper, I. (2026). The Targeting Error, Paper V. - Brinkhuis, H. et al. Nature 441 (2006). The Azolla Event. - Suetonius. Life of Augustus. The annona civica; the Pinarius record. - Cassius Dio. Roman History. The Nerva alimenta. - CIL XI 1147. Tabula Alimentaria from Veleia. - Yang et al. Nature Ecology and Evolution (September 2024). Mabu Co, Tibetan Plateau sedentary settlement. - Ibn Khaldun (1377). Muqaddimah. - Quigley, C. (1961). The Evolution of Civilizations. - Tainter, J. (1988). The Collapse of Complex Societies. - Turchin, P. (2023). End Times. - Fuller, R.B. (1969). Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. - Meadows, D. (2008). Thinking in Systems.

TEXAS-SPECIFIC: - Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. 2026-27 State Budget certification; SB 1 General Appropriations Act recapitulation. $338.02B all funds; $177.46B General-Revenue-related. - U.S. Census Bureau. Texas population July 2025 estimate, 31.7 million. - Texas Secretary of State. Colonia initiatives. Approximately 500,000 residents. - NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas. - Hurricane Harvey (2017). $125B damage, 300,000+ structures flooded.

END OF BILL

Texas Food, Resource, and Commodity Assurance Act

Prepared for the 90th Legislature of the State of Texas Regular Session 2027

Based on the Historical Apoplexy series by Imran Stanton Cooper

Prepared by Imran Stanton Cooper Original proposal: Colorado, 2016

"Texas feeds the nation. Texas powers the nation. Texas sends humans to space. It is time Texas takes care of Texans."

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Verification notes & full source chain

Constitutional path: Legislative path only.

Distribution-model precedent: The U.S. Defense Commissary Agency (10 U.S.C. § 2484), operational since 1867, sells groceries at cost plus a five-percent maintenance surcharge with no profit allowed by law. 2.8 million authorized users, 236 stores worldwide, $4 billion annual sales, $1.3 billion federal appropriation paid by all taxpayers including the 330+ million civilians denied access. This bill extends the same at-cost distribution model to all residents of Texas.

Public-health-equity evidence: The Marmot Whitehall Studies (1967-present), Sapolsky's Serengeti baboons, Shively's cynomolgus macaques, and Blackburn's Nobel-winning telomere research establish that hierarchy itself kills across four research programmes, six decades, and three species. The gap is the gradient. Food assurance reaches beyond bare survival because the gradient damages population health even where calorie minimums are met.

Abundance arithmetic: 293,000 U.S. manufacturing facilities at 77 percent utilization; 19.5-29.3× the productive overcapacity required to provide universal abundance in consumer goods. 47.9 million Americans food-insecure; $32 billion ends domestic hunger; $496 billion is the annual U.S. food-industry markup over production cost; the gap is operational evidence of manufactured scarcity, not evidence of resource constraint. See Paper III, The Mathematics of Abundance.