WEEK IN REVIEW
SENATE APPROVES DEMENTIA INSTITUTE
(AUSTIN) — The Senate on Wednesday gave approval to a bill that would create a new institute dedicated to finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease and other causes of dementia. About half a million Texans suffered from dementia in 2024, and with the over-65 population projected to double in the next 25 years, the problem looks to get worse. SB 5, by Houston Senator Joan Huffman, would create an endowment to fund research grants and bring the top physicians, scientists, and researchers in the field to Texas. “There is no better place than Texas to take on this challenge,” said Huffman. “We have world class medical centers and researchers and our business friendly tax and regulatory environment puts Texas at a unique advantage to become the epicenter of biomedical research.” Her bill would create the Dementia Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (DPRIT) and fund it with an initial capitalization of $3 billion, with a cap on annual state revenue transfers thereafter set at $300 million.
The plan is explicitly modeled on the successful Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, created in 2007 through legislation carried by then-Flower Mound Senator Jane Nelson. Nelson, now Texas Secretary of State, was on hand last week as the Finance Committee took up the bill. With DPRIT, she sees the opportunity to make Texas the epicenter of the effort to find a cure for dementia, in the same way CPRIT has helped make Texas the top state for cancer treatment in the nation. “We’re close, we’re close,” Nelson told the committee. “And you have the opportunity to make that push.”
As the bill passed the Senate, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick said that no other bill has caused an outpouring of support and thanks from people he meets than the plan to find a cure for dementia. “Unlike any other state, really, we do have the wherewithal sometimes to do great, big things that impact everybody,” he told members. “Of the surplus dollars we have…it seems like it could be the best money that we are spending.”
Also this week, the Senate approved a plan Thursday to create a state Bitcoin reserve in which the state can purchase and store this cryptocurrency. Bitcoin has become a legitimate, trusted, and highly-traded financial instrument over the past decade, said bill author and Georgetown Senator Charles Schwertner. He said that Texas needs to stay on the forefront of the changing financial landscape. “I want Texas to lead in this,” he said. “To lead in the digital financial economy and I think it is worthwhile that Texas expands its financial options when it comes to the store of value.” The bill, SB 21, does not appropriate any money to seed the account, it only creates the account, to be administered by the Office of the Comptroller. Any funds would have to be appropriated by the legislature through the budget process.
In committee this week, the Senate State Affairs Committee considered a measure that would ban THC, the psychoactive chemical present in cannabis, in all hemp consumables in Texas. SB 3 author and Lubbock Senator Charles Perry said that when the state legalized industrialized hemp, it was intended to create a new agricultural market in the state. Instead, a large industry of hemp consumables cropped up, an industry that now takes in $8 billion a year, said Perry. Complicating this is the availability of the slightly less intoxicating delta-8 THC, which is not technically illegal in the state. SB 3 would simply prohibit the presences of any level or type of THC in any hemp consumable product. It would not change the status of two legal cannabinoids, cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabigerol (CBG), but it would increase licensing fees for, and oversight over, producers.
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