BILL ANALYSIS

H.B. 2827

By: Burns

Environmental Regulation

Committee Report (Unamended)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

In 2001, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), as part of a total maximum daily load implementation plan, imposed regulations on municipalities, from Stephenville to Waco, and dairy confined animal feeding operations located in the Bosque River Watershed. These dairy farms, located in Erath, Comanche, and Hamilton Counties, are being required to obtain an individual permit instead of the general permit that dairy producers in the rest of Texas utilize. This individual permit requires more intensive management, including enlarged waste storage lagoons and increased recordkeeping, and is more expensive.

Individual permits are more expensive to prepare and submit and require additional TCEQ staff time to review and process, resulting in significant delays to obtain or renew a permit.  Individual permits also leave the dairies at risk of lengthy administrative hearings that could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The management practices adopted by dairy farmers in the watershed have been adopted by other farms to reduce nutrients and possible runoff. The dairy industry continues to adopt advanced technology for handling waste, such as the use of methane digestors currently being built by dairy farmers located in the watershed. H.B. 2827 seeks to keep current practices in place to ensure continued water quality in the watershed but provide for less administrative burden by changing the new or amended permit by which the TCEQ, with regard to the protection of certain watersheds, may authorize the construction or operation of a new concentrated animal feeding operation or an increase in the animals confined under an existing operation, from an individual permit to a general permit.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE IMPACT

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly create a criminal offense, increase the punishment for an existing criminal offense or category of offenses, or change the eligibility of a person for community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision.

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the committee's opinion that rulemaking authority is expressly granted to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in SECTION 1 of this bill.

ANALYSIS

H.B. 2827 amends the Water Code to the change the new or amended permit by which the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), with regard to the protection of certain watersheds, may authorize the construction or operation of a new concentrated animal feeding operation or an increase in the animals confined under an existing operation, from an individual permit to a general permit.

H.B. 2827 prohibits the TCEQ by rule or as a condition of such a general permit from requiring an operator of a concentrated animal feeding operation to receive training on animal waste management and requires the TCEQ by rule or as such a condition to require the operator to retain and submit to the TCEQ on request a record of the following:

· the amount of manure, litter, or wastewater from the operation applied to a third-party waste application field, including the location of the application and the name of the third party; and

· the results of a testing analysis of a soil sample performed on the operator's behalf.

The bill prohibits the general permit from requiring soil sampling of a third-party waste application field and requires the permit to do the following:

· specify that required soil samples be taken at depths of zero to six inches; and

· require soil sample results to be included in the annual report provided to the TCEQ.

H.B. 2827 repeals provisions that do the following:

· prohibit the TCEQ from issuing a general permit to authorize the discharge of agricultural waste into or adjacent to waters in Texas from an animal feeding operation if such waters are within a major sole source impairment zone; and

· if applicable soil samples show a phosphorus level in the soil of more than 500 parts per million, require the operator of a concentrated animal feeding operation to file with the TCEQ a new or amended nutrient utilization plan with a phosphorus reduction component that is certified as acceptable by an applicable person.

H.B. 2827 repeals the following provisions of the Water Code:

· Section 26.503(d); and

· Section 26.504(c).

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2023.