## Facts

- The Texas Legislature enacted Subchapter 74D of the Texas Agriculture Code to support statewide boll weevil eradication, authorizing the Commissioner of Agriculture to certify a nonprofit as the “Official Cotton Growers’ Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation.”
- After certification and a grower referendum, the Foundation could create eradication zones and run eradication programs within those zones.
- The statutory scheme authorized the Foundation to assess zone cotton growers for program costs and to use enforcement measures, including late-payment penalties, entry onto private property for treatment/monitoring, and crop-related enforcement actions up to destruction of crops in some circumstances.
- Cotton growers subject to the program filed declaratory-judgment suits challenging the assessments and the statutory scheme on constitutional grounds, including separation of powers/nondelegation, an asserted state constitutional ban on taxes on agricultural pursuits, and equal protection.
- Trial courts invalidated the assessments and enjoined their collection; the Foundation appealed, and the appeals were consolidated in the Supreme Court of Texas.

## Issues

1. Whether the Foundation’s assessments were an unconstitutional “tax on an agricultural pursuit” under the Texas Constitution or a permissible regulatory fee.
2. Whether the statutory classifications and zone-based structure violated equal-protection guarantees under the U.S. or Texas Constitutions.
3. Whether Subchapter 74D unconstitutionally delegated legislative power to a private entity in violation of the Texas Constitution’s separation-of-powers provision.

## Decision

- The court held the assessments were regulatory fees, not prohibited agricultural-pursuit taxes, because they were imposed only on affected zone growers and earmarked for the eradication program rather than general revenue.
- The court rejected the equal-protection challenge under rational-basis review, concluding the zone-based approach and related classifications were rationally related to eradication of a serious agricultural pest and treated similarly situated growers within zones alike.
- The court affirmed the injunctions and invalidation of assessments because the statute delegated excessively broad regulatory and coercive authority to a private nonprofit without sufficient statutory standards and governmental control.
- Because the nondelegation defect was dispositive, the court did not address every additional challenge raised by the growers.

## Legal Principles

- Regulatory assessments tied to a specific program and spent for that program’s purposes may be treated as regulatory fees rather than taxes, even if mandatory.
- Under rational-basis review, economic and geographic classifications in regulatory programs are generally upheld if reasonably related to a legitimate governmental purpose and applied evenhandedly within the regulated class.
- The Legislature may delegate implementation authority only if it sets policy and reasonably clear standards and provides adequate governmental safeguards.
- Delegations to private entities are subject to heightened separation-of-powers concern when the private actor is given coercive regulatory powers without meaningful state supervision or limiting standards.

## Conclusion

The Texas Supreme Court upheld the boll weevil eradication assessments as regulatory fees and found no equal-protection violation, but struck the statutory scheme because it transferred broad, coercive regulatory authority to a private foundation without sufficient legislative standards and governmental oversight, requiring invalidation and injunctive relief against collection.


Tex. Boll Weevil Eradication Found., Inc. v. Lewellen, 952 S.W.2d 454 (Tex. 1997)