SB 1, the Heaven’s 27 Camp Safety Act, is a legislative response to a deeply tragic event that exposed gaps in emergency preparedness at youth camps located in Texas floodplains. Its core intent, to enhance child safety, ensure evacuation readiness, and mandate communication infrastructure, is laudable. However, the bill’s current language, particularly as revised in the House Committee Substitute, expands regulatory oversight and compliance mandates in a way that creates substantial unintended consequences for legacy institutions, rural camp operators, and faith-based nonprofits. While the spirit of SB 1 deserves support, its form requires meaningful amendments before it can be considered consistent with foundational principles of liberty, property rights, fiscal prudence, and limited government.
The bill grants broad, non-discretionary authority to the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) to approve or deny licenses based on FEMA floodplain designations, regardless of a camp’s specific flood history or current structural integrity. Camps with long safety records, like those in Kerr County with over 100 years of operation, could be denied licensure or forced to rebuild structurally sound cabins solely due to new map lines. These mandates carry no grandfathering provisions, no variance process, and no operational allowances during reconstruction. As articulated in the joint letter submitted by Camp Waldemar, Camp Stewart, and Vista Camps, the result would likely be millions in rebuilding costs, multi-season closures, and a domino effect on local employment, small businesses, and the broader Texas youth development sector.
The bill further mandates costly infrastructure upgrades, including the installation of two broadband Internet connections (one being end-to-end fiber), independent PA systems, and illuminated evacuation signage. These mandates may be reasonable for large, year-round commercial camps, but they are financially prohibitive for small, nonprofit, or seasonal operators. The law includes no scalable thresholds for compliance, no funding assistance, and no waiver authority, even for camps with excellent safety records or those operating in remote areas. This one-size-fits-all framework undermines the economic diversity and operational flexibility that have long characterized Texas’s youth camp community.
Additionally, the bill mandates the disclosure of internal emergency plans to state agencies and emergency management entities without accompanying protections for sensitive data, such as camper rosters, evacuation routes, and personnel roles. Faith-based camps or private organizations may be required to surrender operational information that could conflict with doctrinal beliefs or violate privacy expectations. The bill offers no exemption for religious institutions, no opt-out mechanisms for nonpublic data, and no limits on how collected information may be used beyond emergency coordination. These omissions raise legitimate concerns related to individual liberty, privacy, and freedom of association.
Finally, from a fiscal standpoint, the Legislative Budget Board has identified technology and compliance costs for DSHS exceeding $264,000 in the first year, with indefinite staffing needs and future expenses unaccounted for. Yet no cost-sharing provisions or implementation grants are offered to camps that would bear the bulk of infrastructure and compliance costs. Without technical assistance, financial support, or phased implementation plans, the law risks trading a safety solution for the collapse of long-standing institutions and jobs in communities that rely heavily on the camp economy.
SB 1 should not advance without the addition of amendments that (1) introduce tiered compliance based on camp size, risk, and operational type; (2) offer waivers or exemptions for religious and nonprofit camps; (3) provide temporary operating allowances during rebuilding periods; (4) establish funding or insurance mechanisms to support compliance; (5) protect sensitive data in emergency plans; and (6) allow local input or mitigation strategies for camps impacted by new FEMA floodplain designations. With these changes, SB 1 can achieve its safety objectives while preserving the rich cultural, educational, and economic value that Texas youth camps provide. Without them, the bill threatens to do more harm than good.
As such, Texas Policy Research recommends that lawmakers vote NO on SB 1 unless amended as described above.
- Individual Liberty: The bill compels all youth camps, regardless of their history, ownership structure, or affiliation, to submit highly detailed emergency plans to the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) for state approval and inclusion in a digital database accessible to multiple agencies. These plans must include internal procedures, muster zones, staff designations, and communications protocols. Camps must also disclose these plans to parents and local officials. There are no exemptions for faith-based or private institutions, and no privacy protections to prevent sensitive operational information from being misused or overly accessed. This undermines freedom of association and religious liberty, particularly for camps operated by churches, religious schools, or other private organizations that have, for decades, managed safety successfully through internal protocols. Forced disclosure of internal operational plans, especially without cause, incident history, or appeal, represents an encroachment on the autonomy of private and religious institutions.
- Personal Responsibility: Rather than empowering camp operators to assess their unique risks and develop appropriate safety strategies, the bill imposes a top-down, prescriptive framework that standardizes emergency preparedness. While the legislation promotes safety, it does so by centralizing decision-making at the state level, rather than encouraging camps to take ownership of their emergency planning in consultation with local authorities. This undermines the principle of personal and institutional responsibility. Camps that already maintain high safety standards are treated the same as those without any planning in place. The bill discourages proactive, context-specific risk management by replacing it with state-mandated checklists and rigid protocols.
- Free Enterprise: The bill places heavy regulatory burdens on all youth camps, regardless of their size, operating budget, or business model. The requirement to install dual broadband internet connections (including end-to-end fiber) is a costly infrastructure mandate that disproportionately impacts rural, nonprofit, and faith-based camps with limited financial resources. Similarly, new obligations around staff training, signage, illuminated evacuation paths, and PA systems impose substantial fixed costs that may force some camps to close or significantly raise fees for campers. This stifles entrepreneurial diversity in the camp sector, favors large and well-capitalized operators, and may discourage new entrants. The uniformity of mandates creates an uneven playing field and threatens the viability of smaller or more mission-driven institutions.
- Private Property Rights: The bill conditions a camp’s ability to operate on its geographic location, specifically, its presence within a 100-year FEMA floodplain. Even if no actual flooding has occurred and cabins are structurally sound, operators may be denied a license or forced to rebuild at their own expense. FEMA floodplain maps can change over time, meaning camps may lose licensure eligibility based on administrative remapping rather than environmental reality. Camps are offered no compensation for these regulatory takings, no mitigation pathways, and no alternative compliance options. This strips landowners of the ability to use their property in a manner consistent with decades of safe operation, violating the principle that government should not unduly interfere with lawful, responsible land use.
- Limited Government: Perhaps most significantly, the bill creates a vast new regulatory apparatus within DSHS and HHSC. These agencies are empowered to promulgate rules, approve or deny emergency plans, store and distribute private safety documents, and enforce infrastructure mandates, without any built-in waiver authority or sunset provisions. The bill also removes DSHS’s longstanding ability to issue exemptions, effectively eliminating institutional discretion. This expansion of executive rulemaking power centralizes authority over an entire industry previously governed by local norms, professional standards, and voluntary compliance. It establishes a precedent for future legislation that could similarly regulate other private organizations, schools, churches, or nonprofits, under the pretense of uniform safety mandates.
