By:  Lucio                                             S.B. No. 603
       73R1585 MJW-F
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the authority of an agricultural marketing association
    1-3  to deal in nonmember products and supplies.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 52.012(c), Agriculture Code, is amended
    1-6  to read as follows:
    1-7        (c)  A marketing association that is organized primarily for
    1-8  the production, cultivation, and care of citrus groves or <and> for
    1-9  the processing and marketing of citrus products and for which the
   1-10  principal offices are located in a county in which not less than
   1-11  500 acres of land are planted in producing citrus groves may deal
   1-12  in the products and supplies of nonmembers to an amount that is
   1-13  greater than the value of the products that it handles for its
   1-14  members for the 10-year <five-year> period immediately following a
   1-15  natural disaster, such as a severe freeze, during which the citrus
   1-16  crops of the association's membership are substantially reduced as
   1-17  a direct result of the disaster.
   1-18        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-19  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-20  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-21  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-22  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   1-23  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   1-24  passage, and it is so enacted.