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Senate Bill 1461 |
Senate Author: Seliger |
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Effective: 9-1-07 |
House Sponsor: Cook, Byron et al. |
Senate Bill 1461 amends the Government Code to authorize the governor to contract on behalf of the state with an organization, including the FutureGen Industrial Alliance, Inc., that qualifies for a federal income tax exemption under Section 501(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to implement a clean coal project or demonstration program. The bill allows the governor and the comptroller to jointly adopt provisions for issuing to such organization franchise tax credits to promote research and development activities related to a clean coal project, and it allows that organization, if it does not have a franchise tax liability, to assign the tax credits to a taxable entity.
The bill also amends the Natural Resources Code to require the Bureau of Economic Geology at The University of Texas at Austin to monitor, measure, and verify the permanent status of sequestered carbon dioxide to which the Railroad Commission has acquired rights. The commission's acquisition of right, title, and interest in carbon dioxide captured by a clean coal project relieves the project's owner or operator of liability with regard to certain aspects of the carbon dioxide injection location or method of injection if the location and method comply with the terms of a state permit or license or state law and regulations. The bill allows a state agency to request the attorney general to represent it in a legal proceeding that arises from an escape or migration of carbon dioxide captured or sequestered in connection with a clean coal project or, if the attorney general declines the request, to obtain outside counsel, with the attorney general's declination constituting that office's approval of the outside counsel.