Texas governor signs law creating state DOGE

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed legislation Wednesday creating the Lone Star State's own cost- and regulation-cutting agency styled after tech billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative for the federal government.

"Texas DOGE will lead to spending cuts, regulation cuts and a more user-friendly government," Abbott said during a bill-signing ceremony in Austin on Wednesday. "It will ensure that Texas is operating at the speed of business, and it will make it easier for our fellow Texans, average Texas, to deal with their own state government."

Texas Senate Bill 14, which received broad bipartisan support in both chambers of the Republican-controlled Legislature, establishes the "Texas Regulatory Efficiency Office," tasked with helping state agencies root out "unnecessary and ineffective rules" and improve "public access to information regarding state agency rules, forms and filings."

According to the new law, the "Texas DOGE" will also guide agencies in cutting back state-mandated training hours, fees, forms, and other requirements deemed inefficient.

It's projected to cost taxpayers about $22 million over the next five years, according to a legislative fiscal note.

"We want to have a clear review of all of our agencies, where we can trim, how we can save businesses money, how we can save taxpayers money, so that they will continue to come here and create jobs and add to our economic viability and competitiveness,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) said during the ceremony.

"In Texas, we like to keep things simple, so Texas DOGE will make us more transparent than ever to every citizen [and] cut all the red tape — or most of the red tape, making us as efficient as possible, attracting more businesses, creating more jobs and saving taxpayer money."

Texas is among more than two dozen mostly GOP-led states that have rushed to adopt regulatory bodies modeled after the federal DOGE program that Musk has effectively led since President Trump returned to the White House in January. Many have done so through executive action and the creation of tasks forces.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) announced the creation of a one-year Florida State Department of Governmental Efficiency task force in February.

But critics have questioned whether the efforts are merely ploys for Trump's attention, including the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI), which published a damning review of the efforts earlier this month.

"Several states have proposed DOGE-labelled legislation that will radically restructure government in favor of governors and their appointees at the expense of career civil servants," EPI's researchers wrote. "Such efforts have also targeted the independence, authority, and staffing of state agencies."

"Despite the novel branding, these initiatives are part of the longstanding right-wing mission to capture and consolidate government in service of the wealthy," they added.

On the federal level, the Trump administration's DOGE has also faced pushback from Democrats and others who have raised issues over potential threats to federal programs, DOGE's handling of sensitive information and the effectiveness of the endeavor.