The U.S. House of Representatives passed a $484 billion pandemic relief bill on April 23 to join the U.S. Senate, which approved it two days earlier.

The Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act will inject $310 billion in loans into the depleted Small Business Administration's (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) created by the stimulus bill in March.

After the PPP exhausted its initial $350 billion allocation last week, complaints arose that larger businesses or those with strong relationships to their banks received the majority of the funds over smaller companies.

The new act allocates $60 billion in PPP loans for medium, small, and community lenders and another $60 billion to the Economic Injury Disaster Loans program that offers loans up to $2 million.

It also appropriates $75 billion to hospitals and health care providers and $25 billion to boost testing efforts nationwide. It does not include funding for state and local governments.

President Trump signed the bill on April 24.

Texas' state and local education institutions will be eligible to apply for more than $1.28 billion from a $13 billion tranche of federal CARES Act funding announced on April 23.

The U.S. Department of Education will disperse aid from the Elementary and Secondary School Education Relief Fund (ESSER). 

Funding allocations are part of the nearly $31 billion Congress allocated to the department to distribute to students, K-12 schools, and higher education institutions.

The department also developed a process for providing states with funding flexibilities so that they can repurpose existing K-12 education funds for technology infrastructure and teacher training on remote learning and to move resources to areas of highest need. 

To determine the ESSER Fund allocations, the department used the fiscal year 2019 state shares of Title I, Part A allocations for low-income families without the application of the hold harmless provisions.

Local leaders will have the flexibility to determine how to use their ESSER funds, as long as they comply with applicable federal education laws. State Education Agencies (SEAs) must allocate 90 percent of their ESSER funds to local education agencies, including public charter schools. Up to 10 percent of the SEA's award may be retained for the state agency to use to address needs related to responding to coronavirus.

After one year, SEAs must return any funds that have not been awarded, and the U.S. secretary of education will reallocate those funds to the states.

The Corpus Christi City Council authorized staff to apply for $222.48 million in financial assistance from the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) for the construction of a seawater desalination plant.

TWDB officials included the city's desalination plant project in the 2020 State Water Implementation Fund for Texas (SWIFT).

The water board also invited Corpus Christi and other municipalities to submit full applications by May 11. Abridged applications were due February 3.

If approved, the city would apply the TWDB funds to the procurement, design, and construction costs for its proposed seawater desalination plant on the Inner Harbor Ship Channel.

Corpus Christi also has submitted permits to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for water discharge permits and water rights on the Inner Harbor Ship Channel and a possible future plant on the La Quinta Channel.

TCEQ is taking public comments on the permit application. The discharge permit on the application for the Inner Harbor facility is expected to be declared administratively complete in the near future. Both sites would produce public drinking water for the region.

The envisioned plants will use reverse osmosis technology with diffusers at the outfall. Intake of source water and outfall of concentrate will be from the two channels. Dewatered residual solids will be disposed at the city's regional landfill. The plants would be designed to allow for future expansion with environmental and operational factors considered in terms of the ultimate size.

Production capacity at the Inner Harbor Desalination Plant would be an initial 10 million gallons per day (MGD) that would increase to 20 MGD with expansions to reach 30 MGD ultimately.

The La Quinta plant would begin operations at 20M GD and increase production capacity to 30 MGD through expansion and 40 MGD in ultimate capacity.

The Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) adopted a resolution on April 20 to commit an allocation of $633 million to help fund the Interstate 35 Capital Express project in Austin after weeks of discussion and public input.

When CAMPO first agreed to the financial assistance, its Transportation Policy Board understood that it would have to cut several projects from its draft 2045 Regional Transportation Plan in order to free up those funds.

Amid criticism that CAMPO's decision would be made in haste, the organization extended the public comment period to allow for more input and analysis before finalizing the list of projects in the long-range plan.

The 2045 plan will address transportation needs over the next 25 years in CAMPO's service area of Bastrop, Burnet, Caldwell, Hays, Travis, and Williamson counties. This multimodal plan includes a variety of transportation modes including driving, walking, biking, transit, and emerging technologies.

CAMPO staff will be evaluating and scoring projects that are eligible for Category 7 funding via the Federal Highway Administration's Surface Transportation Block Grant program based on readiness for construction and other criteria.

The Transportation Policy Board is set to review staff's project rankings at its June 8 meeting.

Huntsville City Council debated but ultimately approved a master plan for Bruce Brothers Huntsville Regional Airport on April 21 that includes a proposed $25 million runway extension from 5,005 feet to 5,500 feet.

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is expected to contribute 90 percent of the funding for the runway extension designed to serve current and future needs of critical aircraft.

Some councilmembers said the extension should be longer, but city officials said that Huntsville could proceed with the project at the regional airport and build another runway at a different location.

The centerpiece of the master plan is the completion of the airport layout plan (ALP) that will be updated during the latter stages of the master plan. The ALP will illustrate existing and ultimate airfield and terminal area facilities and proposed layouts, property interests, land use, and airspace improvements.

Other master plan objectives are to expand the airport's main apron and terminal area and conduct a site assessment of the potential development area on city-owned land west of the runway.

Additional goals are to identify phased airfield expansion options to meet demand, design capabilities for accommodating categories of larger aircraft, assess aeronautical uses at Huntsville, and determine the airport's role among general aviation airports north and west of Houston.

The Tomball Economic Development Corporation (TEDC) announced the acquisition of 6.2 acres of South Live Oak Industrial Park earlier this month with the vision of creating a mixed-use development on vacant property.

TEDC's purchase includes two industrial warehouses totaling 41,076 square feet directly off Main Street near downtown Tomball. TEDC's executive director said the corporation will begin searching for a tenant for one of the warehouses.

 
The North Freeway/Tomball Parkway submarket, located between Highway 249 and Interstate 45 North, encompasses 30 million square feet of industrial and flex space. The submarket, which is 86.2 percent occupied, is the second largest of the four submarkets located in Houston's north industrial corridor. Annual absorption has increased by 35.7 percent, and close to 1 million square feet is under construction in the North Freeway/Tomball Parkway submarket.