By Saunders                                           H.B. No. 2359
       74R5257 JD-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the financing of the construction, improvement, or
    1-3  maintenance of farm-to-market roads.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 4.002(a), County Road and Bridge Act
    1-6  (Article 6702-1, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), is amended to read
    1-7  as follows:
    1-8        (a)  The farm-to-market road fund is established for
    1-9  financing the construction, improvement, and maintenance of
   1-10  farm-to-market roads by the State Department of Highways and Public
   1-11  Transportation.  The department may use money in the fund only for
   1-12  the construction, improvement, or maintenance of a farm-to-market
   1-13  road, or a segment of a farm-to-market road, that is located
   1-14  outside the limits of a municipality.
   1-15        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995.  The
   1-16  change in law made by this Act applies only to a project for the
   1-17  construction, improvement, or maintenance of a farm-to-market road
   1-18  that is initiated by the Texas Department of Transportation on or
   1-19  after that date.  A project for the construction, improvement, or
   1-20  maintenance of a farm-to-market road that was initiated by the
   1-21  Texas Department of Transportation before the effective date of
   1-22  this Act is covered by the law in effect when the project was
   1-23  initiated, and the former law is continued in effect for that
   1-24  purpose.  For purposes of this section, a project for the
    2-1  construction, improvement, or maintenance of a farm-to-market road
    2-2  was initiated by the Texas Department of Transportation before the
    2-3  effective date of this Act if any phase of the project was
    2-4  initiated by the department before that date.
    2-5        SECTION 3.  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.