BILL ANALYSIS C.S.H.B. 2945 By: Dukes 04-25-95 Committee Report (Substituted) BACKGROUND In 1991, the Texas Legislature enacted Senate Bill 1340 (SB 1340), which established a number of ambitious recycling and waste reduction programs at the state level and set a 40 percent statewide recycling goal to be achieved by January 1, 1994. In 1993, the Legislature revisited the issue and enacted Senate Bill 1051, which amended the goal to include source reduction as well as recycling, and which directed the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC), if the state did not meet the goal by January 1, 1994, to convene a "40% Task Force" to study the issues and make recommendations to the Legislature. As part of their Final Report, the 40% Task Force recommended that the 40% source reduction and recycling goal be reauthorized without a specific final deadline, and that the base year for calculating the 40% goal be changed to 1992. PURPOSE HB 2945 removes the 1994 goal deadline, changes the base year from 1991 to 1992, and calls for a task force to be convened if the goal has not been achieved by 2001. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency or institution. SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS SECTION 1. Amends Section 361.422, Health and Safety Code as follows: (a) Deletes the January 1, 1994 40% reduction and recycling goal deadline. (d) Changes "the municipal solid waste reduction goal" to the "state source reduction and recycling goal"; changes the base year for calculating the source reduction and recycling goal from 1991 to 1992; changes the computation toward the goal from comparing "total number of tons disposed in the year under comparison to the total number of tons disposed in the base year" to comparing "total number of tons disposed in the year under comparison to the weight of the total municipal solid waste stream in the base year." (e) Requires the commission to determine, before January 1, 2001, whether the goal established in subsection (a) is being achieved. If it is not being achieved, the commission shall convene an advisory task force which is required to recommend a plan to the legislature for reaching the goal established in Subsection (a). SECTION 2. Emergency clause. Effective date: upon passage. COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL TO SUBSTITUTE The committee substitute is a Legislative Council draft of the original bill with no significant changes. SUMMARY OF COMMITTEE ACTION HB 2945 was considered by the House Committee on Environmental Regulation in a public hearing on April 25, 1995. The committee considered a complete substitute which was adopted without objection. HB 2945 was reported favorably as substituted, with the recommendation that it do pass and be printed, by a record vote of five (5) ayes, no (0) nays, no (0) pnv, and four (4) absent.