By Saunders                                           H.B. No. 2577
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the royalty payment for minerals on state property.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Chapter 53, Natural Resources Code, is amended by
    1-5  amending Subchapter E, Section 53.154 to read as follows:
    1-6        (a)  In addition to the cash amount bid for a lease, the
    1-7  board shall lease the area for not less than one-eighth of the
    1-8  gross production of sulphur or the value of the sulphur that may be
    1-9  produced or that may be produced and sold off the area and not less
   1-10  than one-sixteenth, or a negotiated amount determined to be
   1-11  reasonable by the board, of the value of the coal, lignite, salt,
   1-12  and potash that may be produced plus an amount determined by the
   1-13  board until production is secured.
   1-14        (b)  If production is secured in commercial quantities and
   1-15  the payment of royalty begins and continues to be paid, the lessee
   1-16  is exempt from further delay rental payments on the acreage.
   1-17        (c)  If production ceases and royalty is not paid, the lessee
   1-18  shall pay at the end of the lease year in which the royalty ceased
   1-19  to be paid annually after that time in advance, in an amount
   1-20  determined by the board as long as the lessee desired to maintain
   1-21  the rights acquired under the lease, but not for more than <five>
   1-22  twenty-five years from the date of the lease.
   1-23        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-1  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-2  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-3  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-4  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    2-5  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    2-6  passage, and it is so enacted.