By:  Ellis                                            S.B. No. 1718

         Line and page numbers may not match official copy.

         Bill not drafted by TLC or Senate E&E.

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

                                       AN ACT

 1-1     relating to the definition of certain conservation and reclamation

 1-2     districts as a water and sewer utility.

 1-3           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

 1-4           SECTION 1.  Chapter 13, Section 13.002, Subparagraph (3),

 1-5     Water Code is hereby amended to read as follows:

 1-6                 (3)  "Water and sewer utility," "public utility," or

 1-7     "utility" means any person, corporation, cooperative corporation,

 1-8     or any combination of these persons or entities, other than a

 1-9     municipal corporation, water supply or sewer service corporation,

1-10     or a political subdivision of the state, or their lessees,

1-11     trustees, and receivers, owning or operating for compensation in

1-12     this state equipment or facilities for the transmission, storage,

1-13     distribution, sale, or provision of potable water to the public or

1-14     for the resale of potable water to the public for any use or for

1-15     the collection, transportation, treatment, or disposal of sewage or

1-16     other operation of a sewage disposal service for the public, other

1-17     than equipment or facilities owned and operated for either purpose

1-18     by a city, town, or other political subdivision of this state or a

1-19     water supply or sewer service corporation, but does not include any

1-20     person or corporation not otherwise a public utility that furnishes

1-21     the services or commodity only to itself or its employees or

 2-1     tenants as an incident of that employee service or tenancy when

 2-2     that service or commodity is not resold to or used by others.  As

 2-3     used in this paragraph, political subdivision shall not include a

 2-4     conservation and reclamation district organized under Art. XVI,

 2-5     Sec. 59 of the Texas Constitution with a territory of more than

 2-6     10,000 acres providing household water and sewer service.

 2-7           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the

 2-8     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

 2-9     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

2-10     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

2-11     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.