76R11783 JJT-F                           
         By Hawley                                             H.B. No. 2308
         Substitute the following for H.B. No. 2308:
         By West                                           C.S.H.B. No. 2308
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to services of a gas utility provided to a school
 1-3     district.
 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-5           SECTION 1.  Subchapter F, Chapter 104, Utilities Code, is
 1-6     amended by adding Section 104.2545 to read as follows:
 1-7           Sec. 104.2545.  REQUIRED SERVICE TO SCHOOL DISTRICT.  (a)  In
 1-8     this section, "service site" means facilities or buildings operated
 1-9     by a school district in a contiguous geographic area.
1-10           (b)  Unless the utility is prohibited by other law from
1-11     providing the service and if sufficient pipeline capacity is
1-12     available on an existing facility of the utility to provide the
1-13     service, a gas utility or municipally owned utility may not refuse
1-14     to provide to a school district at a service site, at rates
1-15     established as provided by Subsection (c), the following services:
1-16                 (1)  the sale of gas;
1-17                 (2)  the transportation of an annual average of 10
1-18     million British thermal units or more each day of gas that is:
1-19                       (A)  taken as a royalty in kind; and
1-20                       (B)  owned by the state or managed by a marketing
1-21     program operated by the state or by a state agency; or
1-22                 (3)  a combination of the services described by
1-23     Subdivisions (1) and (2).
1-24           (c)  A utility shall provide a service described by
 2-1     Subsection (b) at rates provided by a written contract negotiated
 2-2     between the utility and the state or a state agency.  If the
 2-3     utility and the state or state agency are not able to agree to a
 2-4     contract rate, the railroad commission may determine a fair and
 2-5     reasonable rate for the school district as a rate for a separate
 2-6     class of service.
 2-7           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999.
 2-8           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
 2-9     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
2-10     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
2-11     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
2-12     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.