By Armbrister                                          S.B. No. 168
         76R3009 WP-D                           
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to the provision of electric transmission services by a
 1-3     river authority.
 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-5           SECTION 1.  Chapter 245, Acts of the 67th Legislature,
 1-6     Regular Session, 1981 (Article 717p, Vernon's Texas Civil
 1-7     Statutes), is amended by adding Section 4C to read as follows:
 1-8           Sec. 4C.  (a)  In this section, "electric transmission
 1-9     facilities" includes telecommunications systems that are attached
1-10     or incidental to  facilities used to transmit electric energy.
1-11           (b)  This section applies only to a river authority that is
1-12     engaged in the distribution and sale of electric energy to the
1-13     public.  This section does not authorize a river authority to serve
1-14     as a common carrier of telecommunications services.
1-15           (c)  Notwithstanding any other law, a river authority may:
1-16                 (1)  provide transmission services, as defined by
1-17     Section 31.002, Utilities Code, on a regional basis to any eligible
1-18     transmission customer at any location within or outside the
1-19     boundaries of the river authority; and
1-20                 (2)  acquire, finance, lease, construct, rebuild,
1-21     operate, or sell electric transmission facilities at any location
1-22     within or outside the boundaries of the river authority.
1-23           (d)  This section does not authorize a river authority to
1-24     construct electric transmission facilities for an ultimate consumer
 2-1     of electricity to enable that consumer to bypass the transmission
 2-2     or distribution facilities of its existing provider.
 2-3           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
 2-4     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
 2-5     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
 2-6     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
 2-7     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
 2-8     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
 2-9     passage, and it is so enacted.