Texas' prison agency has asked the Legislature for $298 million over the next two years to add more than 15,700 air conditioned beds, saying the request will help deliver "significant and measurable progress" toward addressing dangerous summer heat in state lockups.

Inmate advocates are less enthused, calling the budget request a sign of "deliberate indifference" to deadly conditions that will require an estimated $1. 5 billion to correct.

The budget debate comes as a federal judge weighs whether to order Texas to cool prisons where indoor temperatures routinely surpass 100 degrees in the summer, creating conditions U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman found to be "plainly unconstitutional" before he presided over a two-week trial on prison heat earlier this year.