By Uher                                         H.B. No. 1579

      75R5532 CBH-D                           

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

 1-1                                   AN ACT

 1-2     relating to the collection of the assessment for the

 1-3     telecommunications infrastructure fund.

 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 3.606, Public Utility Regulatory Act of

 1-6     1995 (Article 1446c-0, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), is amended

 1-7     by adding Subsection (w) to read as follows:

 1-8           (w)  A telecommunications utility or a commercial mobile

 1-9     service provider that recovers from its customers all or part of

1-10     the amount of the  assessment imposed under this section may not

1-11     include a charge for that recovery in a rate charged a political

1-12     subdivision of this state.  This subsection does not authorize a

1-13     telecommunications utility to recover an assessment imposed by this

1-14     section that the utility could not otherwise recover.

1-15           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1997, and

1-16     applies to a rate charged a political subdivision of this state on

1-17     or after that date.  A rate charged a political subdivision of this

1-18     state before that date is  governed by the law in effect on the

1-19     date the rate is charged, and that law is continued in effect for

1-20     that purpose.

1-21           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the

1-22     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

1-23     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

1-24     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

 2-1     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.