By:  Rosson                                           S.B. No. 1121
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to allowable expenses for utility companies.
    1-2        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-3        SECTION 1.  Section 41, Subsection 3, Public Utility
    1-4  Regulatory Act (Article 1446c, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), is
    1-5  amended to read as follows:
    1-6              (3)  Expenses Disallowed.  The regulatory authority
    1-7  shall not consider for ratemaking purposes the following expenses:
    1-8                    (A)  legislative advocacy expenses, whether made
    1-9  directly or indirectly, including but not limited to legislative
   1-10  advocacy expenses included in trade association dues;
   1-11                    (B)  payments, except those made under an
   1-12  insurance or risk-sharing arrangement executed before the date of
   1-13  loss, made to cover costs of accident, equipment failure, or
   1-14  negligence at a utility facility owned by a person or governmental
   1-15  body not selling power inside the State of Texas;
   1-16                    (C)  costs of processing a refund or credit under
   1-17  Subsection (e) of Section 43 of this Act; or
   1-18                    (D)  any expenditure found by the regulatory
   1-19  authority to be unreasonable, unnecessary, or not in the public
   1-20  interest, including but not limited to executive salaries,
   1-21  advertising expenses, legal expenses, and civil penalties or fines.
   1-22  Any salary, contract payment or payment of any other kind for
   1-23  services is unreasonable if it is paid to or for the services of a
    2-1  former employee of the utility who has received a severance payment
    2-2  from the utility within the previous three years that exceeded the
    2-3  former employee's highest annual base compensation unless the
    2-4  severance payment plan was offered to all employees of the utility.
    2-5        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-6  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-7  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-8  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-9  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-10  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-11  passage, and it is so enacted.