1-1  By:  Saunders (Senate Sponsor - Sims)                 H.B. No. 1385
    1-2        (In the Senate - Received from the House May 11, 1995;
    1-3  May 12, 1995, read first time and referred to Committee on Natural
    1-4  Resources; May 17, 1995, reported favorably by the following vote:
    1-5  Yeas 10, Nays 0; May 17, 1995, sent to printer.)
    1-6                         A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-7                                AN ACT
    1-8  relating to the limitation and termination of annual cost recovery
    1-9  fees for regional water quality assessments.
   1-10        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
   1-11        SECTION 1.  Section 26.0135(h), Water Code, as amended by
   1-12  Section 1, Chapter 53, by Section 1, Chapter 316, by Section 1.01,
   1-13  Chapter 564, and by Section 4, Chapter 746, Acts of the 73rd
   1-14  Legislature, Regular Session, 1993, is amended to read as follows:
   1-15        (h)  The commission shall apportion, assess, and recover the
   1-16  reasonable costs of administering the water quality management
   1-17  programs under this section through the fiscal year ending August
   1-18  31, 1998, from users of water and wastewater permit holders in the
   1-19  watershed according to the records of the commission generally in
   1-20  proportion to their right, through permit or contract, to use water
   1-21  from and discharge wastewater in the watershed.  Irrigation water
   1-22  rights will not be subject to this assessment.   The cost to river
   1-23  authorities and others to conduct regional water quality assessment
   1-24  shall be subject to prior review and approval by the commission as
   1-25  to methods of allocation and total amount to be recovered.  The
   1-26  commission shall adopt rules to supervise and implement the water
   1-27  quality assessment and associated costs.   The rules shall ensure
   1-28  that water users and wastewater dischargers do not pay excessive
   1-29  amounts, that a river authority may recover no more than the actual
   1-30  costs of administering the water quality management programs called
   1-31  for in this section, and that no municipality shall be assessed
   1-32  cost for any efforts that duplicate water quality management
   1-33  activities described in Section 26.177 of this chapter.  The rules
   1-34  concerning the apportionment and assessment of reasonable costs
   1-35  shall provide for a recovery of not more than $5,000,000 annually
   1-36  through the <for> fiscal year ending August 31, 1998 <years 1994
   1-37  and 1995>.  Costs recovered by the commission are to be deposited
   1-38  to the water quality fund.  The commission may apply not more than
   1-39  10 percent of the costs recovered annually toward the commission's
   1-40  overhead costs <and are appropriated to the commission> for the
   1-41  administration of this section and the implementation of regional
   1-42  water quality assessments.  The commission shall file a final
   1-43  written report accounting for the costs recovered under this
   1-44  section with the governor, the lieutenant governor, and the speaker
   1-45  of the house of representatives on or before December 31, 1998.
   1-46  This subsection expires January 1, 1999.
   1-47        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-48  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-49  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-50  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-51  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   1-52  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   1-53  passage, and it is so enacted.
   1-54                               * * * * *