By Dukes                                        H.B. No. 3336

      75R4790 MI-F                           

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

 1-1                                   AN ACT

 1-2     relating to the authority of the Texas Natural Resource

 1-3     Conservation Commission to implement federal environmental laws.

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

 1-5           SECTION 1.  Subchapter D, Chapter 5, Water Code, is amended

 1-6     by adding Section 5.123 to read as follows:

 1-7           Sec. 5.123.  DELEGATION OF FEDERAL ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMS;

 1-8     REPORT.  (a)  To avoid duplicative permitting and to maximize

 1-9     federal funding for state programs, the commission shall take all

1-10     reasonable steps necessary to obtain and maintain approval from the

1-11     U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for authority to implement and

1-12     enforce federal environmental permitting programs.

1-13           (b)  Not later than December 1 of each even-numbered year,

1-14     the commission shall report to the legislature on the status of the

1-15     delegation of federal programs to the state.  The report must

1-16     include:

1-17                 (1)  a list of all deficiencies in state law or

1-18     programs identified by the U.S.  Environmental Protection Agency as

1-19     preventing the state from obtaining or maintaining the delegation

1-20     of federal programs;

1-21                 (2)  language for amendments to state law that would

1-22     eliminate the deficiencies identified; and

1-23                 (3)  recommendations on whether each deficiency should

1-24     be eliminated by amending state law.

 2-1           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the

 2-2     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

 2-3     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

 2-4     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

 2-5     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,

 2-6     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its

 2-7     passage, and it is so enacted.