By:  Sims                                              S.B. No. 172
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to pipeline easements.
    1-2        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-3        SECTION 1.  Subchapter B, Chapter 111, Natural Resources
    1-4  Code, is amended by adding Section 111.0194 to read as follows:
    1-5        Sec. 111.0194.  PIPELINE EASEMENTS.  (a)  Unless the terms of
    1-6  the grant or the condemnation judgment expressly provide otherwise,
    1-7  or the easement rights otherwise prescriptively owned through
    1-8  actual use are greater, an easement created through grant or
    1-9  through the power of eminent domain for the benefit of a single
   1-10  common carrier pipeline for which the power of eminent domain is
   1-11  available  under Section 111.019 of this code as of the effective
   1-12  date of this section is presumed to create an easement in favor of
   1-13  the common carrier pipeline, or a successor in interest to the
   1-14  common carrier pipeline, that extends only a width of 60 feet as to
   1-15  each pipeline laid under the grant or judgment in eminent domain
   1-16  prior to September 1, 1993.
   1-17        (b)  The presumption in Subsection (a) of this section is not
   1-18  applicable to pipeline easements of a common carrier pipeline
   1-19  granted under the terms of an oil and gas lease or oil, gas, and
   1-20  mineral lease, or to any easement which authorizes the construction
   1-21  of gathering lines.
   1-22        (c)  The presumption set out in Subsection (a) of this
   1-23  section on the limitation of width may be rebutted by evidence on
   1-24  behalf of the common carrier pipeline that a greater width is
    2-1  reasonably needed for purposes of operation, construction of
    2-2  additional lines under the grant or judgment in an eminent domain
    2-3  proceeding, maintenance, repair, replacement, safety, surveillance,
    2-4  or as a buffer zone for protection of the safe operation of the
    2-5  common carrier pipeline, together with such other evidence as a
    2-6  court may deem relevant to establish the extent of an easement in
    2-7  excess of 60 feet in width.
    2-8        (d)  The presumption in Subsection (a) of this section shall
    2-9  apply separately as to each pipeline under a grant or judgment
   2-10  which allows more than one pipeline on the subservient estate.
   2-11        (e)  This section shall not be deemed to limit any rights of
   2-12  ingress to or egress from easements that may exist under the
   2-13  original grant, prescriptive rights, or common law.
   2-14        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-15  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-16  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-17  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-18  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-19  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-20  passage, and it is so enacted.