By McClendon, et al.                                   H.B. No. 134
         76R429 GWK-D                           
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to the  applicability of the Hazard Communication Act to
 1-3     certain inmates of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 502.003(10), Health and Safety Code, is
 1-6     amended to read as follows:
 1-7                 (10)  "Employee" means a person who may be or may have
 1-8     been exposed to hazardous chemicals in the person's workplace under
 1-9     normal operating conditions or foreseeable emergencies, and
1-10     includes a person working for this state, a person imprisoned in a
1-11     facility operated by or for the Texas Department of Criminal
1-12     Justice and working as a condition of the person's sentence, a
1-13     person working for a political subdivision of this state, or a
1-14     member of a volunteer emergency service organization or,  if the
1-15     applicable OSHA standard or MSHA standard is not in effect, a
1-16     person working for a private employer.  Workers such as office
1-17     workers or accountants who encounter hazardous chemicals only in
1-18     nonroutine, isolated instances are not employees for purposes of
1-19     this chapter.
1-20           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-21     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-22     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-23     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-24     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
 2-1     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
 2-2     passage, and it is so enacted.
 2-3                          COMMITTEE AMENDMENT NO. 1
 2-4           Amend H.B. 134 by striking SECTION 1 of the bill and
 2-5     replacing with a new Section 1 to read as follows:
 2-6           SECTION 1.  Add a new Section 502.020, Health and Safety
 2-7     Code, to read as follows:
 2-8           Although a person imprisoned in a facility operated by or for
 2-9     the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is not an employee for the
2-10     purposes of this act, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
2-11     shall provide a person imprisoned in a facility operated by or for
2-12     the Texas Department of Criminal Justice with the protections from
2-13     exposure to hazardous chemicals in the workplace as provided for in
2-14     this act.
2-15                                                               McClendon