By Madden                                              H.B. No. 200
       74R1822 PB-F
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the definition of professional surveying.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Section 2(1), Professional Land Surveying
    1-5  Practices Act (Article 5282c, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), is
    1-6  amended to read as follows:
    1-7              (1)  "Professional surveying" means the practice <for
    1-8  compensation> of land, boundary, or property surveying or other
    1-9  similar professional practices.  The term includes any service or
   1-10  work the adequate performance of which involves the application of
   1-11  special knowledge of the principles of mathematics, related applied
   1-12  and physical sciences, and relevant laws to the measurement and
   1-13  location of lines, angles, elevations, natural features, and
   1-14  existing man-made works; and, on the beds of bodies of water, the
   1-15  determination of areas and volumes, for:
   1-16                      (A)  the location of real property boundaries
   1-17  by any means, including the use of:
   1-18                          (i)  coordinate datums based on latitude
   1-19  and longitude;
   1-20                          (ii)  universal transverse mercator
   1-21  coordinates;
   1-22                          (iii)  Texas state plane coordinates;
   1-23                          (iv)  local horizontal coordinates; and
   1-24                          (v)  national and local vertical datums;
    2-1                    (B)  the platting and layout of lands and
    2-2  subdivisions of land; and
    2-3                    (C)  the preparation and perpetuation of maps,
    2-4  record plats, field note records, and real property descriptions
    2-5  that represent those surveys.
    2-6        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995, and
    2-7  applies to conduct that constitutes professional surveying that
    2-8  occurs on or after that date.  Conduct that occurred before that
    2-9  date is governed by the law in effect on the date that the conduct
   2-10  occurred, and the former law is continued in effect for that
   2-11  purpose.
   2-12        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-13  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-14  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-15  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-16  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.