Enrolled Bill Summary

            Senate Bill 717 amends the Agriculture Code to eliminate interim advisory groups under the boll weevil eradication program and to authorize the agriculture commissioner instead to appoint advisory committees for existing or contemplated eradication zones. Duties of a committee are similar to those of an interim advisory group, but recommendation jurisdiction becomes discretionary and the list of recommendation topics is modified to delete crediting of cotton grower assessments. The bill authorizes the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation, Inc., to cooperate with a state agency outside Texas with respect to a contiguous area of weevil infestation. It gives the Texas Department of Agriculture certain audit and inspection powers relating to the failure to pay assessments. The bill provides that an assessment lien is subject to and preempted by the federal Food Security Act of 1985, is to be treated in the same manner as a security interest created by the seller, and is not an agricultural lien under Uniform Commercial Code provisions on secured transactions. The bill amends the conditions under which a buyer of cotton takes free of an assessment lien.