Incorporation by Reference: Update from Mr. Bagott

The author responds and updates information regarding The Appraisal foundation.  Incorporation by reference is the major premise of what Mr. Bagott is writing about and in this update, he is looking at the Texas Railroad Commission.  While not specific to the valuation profession it is yet another instance of the public sector grabbing private documents and placing them into regulations and codes.

The press release form Mr. Bagott starts below:

Jeremy Bagott, MAI, AI-GRS
Author contact: BOIpublishingco@gmail.com

*** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ***

AGENCY’S TEXAS TWO-STEP PUSHES FOUNDATION CHIEF’S ‘BIFURCATED’ 2017 PAY TO BACK BURNER

LOS ANGELES (January 27, 2020) – Many real estate appraisers were distracted last week, some pondering why the 2017 annual compensation of more than $760,000 for the sitting president of the Appraisal Foundation constituted both internal retirement pay plus CEO pay, as an undated, unsigned memo posted to the blog site Valuation Nation seemed to explain. A source of confusion: David S. Bunton, president of the tiny congressionally authorized nonprofit, wasn’t retired in 2017 and isn’t retired as of this writing in 2020. Meanwhile, an ominous op-ed was quietly queuing at a newspaper chain in the Lone Star State.

The Austin American-Statesman, the Amarillo Globe-News, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and the other publications owned by the unflinching Lubbock-based A-J Media ran a column Sunday by Jeremy Bagott, author of “Dispatches from the Cosmic Cobra Breeding Farm,” a book that details waste and abuse in appraiser oversight.

“Once you’ve read the column,” said the author, “if you want to independently confirm that no specific version of the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice has ever undergone a required “adoption by reference” rulemaking in the Texas Register – needed to make the standard enforceable in Texas – contact Jill Ledbetter, Team Lead in the Government Filings department in the Texas Secretary of State’s Office. Her email is jledbetter@sos.texas.gov. Be nice to her. She mans a bleak, windswept outpost on the outer frontier between order and lawlessness in Texas government. She’s keeper of the Texas Register.

“If you need your faith in state government restored,” said the author, “contact Rules Attorney Haley Cochran at the Texas Railroad Commission. She’s at Haley.Cochran@rrc.texas.gov. Ask her to email you the steps she took to legally adopt by reference the 2006 version of the copyrighted “NFPA 54” code and the 2008 version of “NFPA 58” code in accordance with Texas law,” said Bagott. “The Texas Railroad Commission is doing everything right. It’s a little sad that simply not breaking your state’s administrative procedure act and administrative code now seems worthy of commendation. A number of states simply can’t do a rulemaking given the USPAP’s two-year change cycle, so they bluff.  It normalizes scofflaw behavior.”