By Brown S.B. No. 1353
75R8426 T
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
1-1 AN ACT
1-2 relating to the imposition of fees on certain pipelines.
1-3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-4 SECTION 1. Chapter 214, Local Government Code, is amended by
1-5 adding Subchapter D to read as follows:
1-6 SUBCHAPTER D. PIPELINES
1-7 Sec. 214.201. DEFINITIONS. In this chapter:
1-8 (1) "Local distribution company" means a person that
1-9 holds itself out to residential customers generally within a
1-10 municipality or a part of a municipality to provide public utility
1-11 service through a line of pipe for a fee.
1-12 (2) "Pipeline" means a line of pipe for conveying
1-13 materials, but does not include a line of pipe owned or operated by
1-14 a local distribution company and does not include a line of pipe
1-15 for conveying electricity or telecommunications data.
1-16 (3) "Public right-of-way" means a state, county,
1-17 municipal or other public highway, road, street, alley, sidewalk,
1-18 drain, or other way or easement, but does not mean other
1-19 municipally-owned property, including public parks.
1-20 Sec. 214.202. PERMISSIBLE REGULATION. (a) A municipality
1-21 may regulate by ordinance the placement, construction, and removal
1-22 of a pipeline in the municipality to avoid interference by the
1-23 pipeline with the use of a public right-of-way over which the
1-24 municipality exercises control or in which it owns an interest, to
2-1 the extent regulation is within the police power of the
2-2 municipality to enact and is not proscribed by state law; but a
2-3 municipality may not unreasonably withhold, condition, or delay its
2-4 consent to the placement, construction, or removal of a pipeline
2-5 in, along, under, over, or across a public right-of-way.
2-6 (b) Nothing herein limits or restricts the right of a
2-7 municipality to grant or withhold a franchise to a local
2-8 distribution company.
2-9 Sec. 214.203. REGULATORY FEES. (a) A municipality may
2-10 impose regulatory fees upon the owner or operator of a pipeline
2-11 located on, along, under, over, or across a public right-of-way
2-12 within a municipality. The regulatory fees may not exceed amounts
2-13 reasonably necessary to cover the actual cost of regulation
2-14 permitted by this subchapter. Except as authorized by this
2-15 subchapter, a municipality may not impose a fee or otherwise charge
2-16 for the placement, construction, maintenance, repair, replacement,
2-17 operation, use, or removal of a pipeline on, along, under, over, or
2-18 across a public right-of-way.
2-19 (b) Nothing herein limits or restricts the right of a
2-20 municipality to impose a franchise fee upon a local distribution
2-21 company.
2-22 (c) Nothing herein restricts the right of a municipality, in
2-23 the event of damage to a street in the municipality, to recover for
2-24 such damage pursuant to law.
2-25 SECTION 2. Section 214.203, Local Government Code, as added
2-26 by this Act, is amended by adding the following paragraph at the
2-27 end of such section:
3-1 (d) No municipality may bring suit to collect a fee for the
3-2 placement, construction, maintenance, repair, replacement,
3-3 operation, use, or removal of a pipeline on, along, under, over, or
3-4 across a public right-of-way during any period earlier than two
3-5 years before commencement of the suit.
3-6 SECTION 3. This Act takes effect immediately, except that
3-7 Section 2 takes effect September 1, 1997.
3-8 SECTION 4. This Act shall not affect the legal authority of
3-9 a municipality to impose a charge on receipts from the end-use sale
3-10 of natural gas within the municipality, and all such legal
3-11 authority applicable to such charges as it existed immediately
3-12 before the effective date of this Act is continued in effect after
3-13 the effective date of this Act. The provisions of this Act shall
3-14 never be construed to imply that the legislature has in this Act
3-15 addressed the issue of whether fees, other than regulatory fees,
3-16 may be imposed on end-use sales by natural gas pipelines within
3-17 municipalities under the law applicable to natural gas pipelines as
3-18 it existed immediately before the effective date of this Act.
3-19 SECTION 5. The importance of this legislation and the
3-20 crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
3-21 emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
3-22 constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
3-23 days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.