By:  Brown                                            S.B. No. 1634
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to the authority of the Harris-Galveston Coastal
    1-2  Subsidence District to require the discontinuance of groundwater
    1-3  use.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Chapter 151, Subchapter D, Section 151.129,
    1-6  Subsection (a), Texas Water Code, is amended to read as follows:
    1-7        (a)  The board may not issue an order requiring a person to
    1-8  completely or partially discontinue the use of groundwater unless
    1-9  the person is able to acquire a water supply that is composed of
   1-10  surface water needed to replace the water supply covered by the
   1-11  order and the economic cost of converting to the surface water
   1-12  supply is clearly outweighed by the beneficial effect on subsidence
   1-13  measurably resulting from such order.  This section does not limit
   1-14  the board's authority to issue orders and rules requiring a person
   1-15  to reduce groundwater use by eliminating waste or implementing
   1-16  water conservation.
   1-17        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-18  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-19  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-20  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-21  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   1-22  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   1-23  passage, and it is so enacted.