H.B. No. 1385
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the limitation and termination of annual cost recovery
    1-3  fees for regional water quality assessments.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 26.0135(h), Water Code, as amended by
    1-6  Section 1, Chapter 53, by Section 1, Chapter 316, by Section 1.01,
    1-7  Chapter 564, and by Section 4, Chapter 746, Acts of the 73rd
    1-8  Legislature, Regular Session, 1993, is amended to read as follows:
    1-9        (h)  The commission shall apportion, assess, and recover the
   1-10  reasonable costs of administering the water quality management
   1-11  programs under this section through the fiscal year ending August
   1-12  31, 1998, from users of water and wastewater permit holders in the
   1-13  watershed according to the records of the commission generally in
   1-14  proportion to their right, through permit or contract, to use water
   1-15  from and discharge wastewater in the watershed.  Irrigation water
   1-16  rights will not be subject to this assessment.   The cost to river
   1-17  authorities and others to conduct regional water quality assessment
   1-18  shall be subject to prior review and approval by the commission as
   1-19  to methods of allocation and total amount to be recovered.  The
   1-20  commission shall adopt rules to supervise and implement the water
   1-21  quality assessment and associated costs.   The rules shall ensure
   1-22  that water users and wastewater dischargers do not pay excessive
   1-23  amounts, that a river authority may recover no more than the actual
   1-24  costs of administering the water quality management programs called
    2-1  for in this section, and that no municipality shall be assessed
    2-2  cost for any efforts that duplicate water quality management
    2-3  activities described in Section 26.177 of this chapter.  The rules
    2-4  concerning the apportionment and assessment of reasonable costs
    2-5  shall provide for a recovery of not more than $5,000,000 annually
    2-6  through the <for> fiscal year ending August 31, 1998 <years 1994
    2-7  and 1995>.  Costs recovered by the commission are to be deposited
    2-8  to the water quality fund.  The commission may apply not more than
    2-9  10 percent of the costs recovered annually toward the commission's
   2-10  overhead costs <and are appropriated to the commission> for the
   2-11  administration of this section and the implementation of regional
   2-12  water quality assessments.  The commission shall file a final
   2-13  written report accounting for the costs recovered under this
   2-14  section with the governor, the lieutenant governor, and the speaker
   2-15  of the house of representatives on or before December 31, 1998.
   2-16  This subsection expires January 1, 1999.
   2-17        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-18  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-19  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-20  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-21  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-22  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-23  passage, and it is so enacted.