By:  Cain                                              S.B. No. 518
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                       AN ACT
 1-1     relating to licensing requirements for the operation of certain
 1-2     farm vehicles and trailers on the highways.
 1-3           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-4           SECTION 1.  Subsection (c), Section 502.276, Transportation
 1-5     Code, is amended to read as follows:
 1-6           (c)  A vehicle that has [An owner who obtains] a
 1-7     distinguishing license plate issued under Subsection (b) may be
 1-8     operated [operate] temporarily on the highways if the vehicle is:
 1-9                 (1)  a farm trailer or farm semitrailer with a gross
1-10     weight of more than 4,000 pounds but not more than 34,000 pounds
1-11     that is used exclusively to transport:
1-12                       (A)  [the owner's] seasonally harvested
1-13     agricultural products or [and] livestock from the place of
1-14     production to the place of processing, market, or storage; or
1-15                       (B)  farm supplies from the place of loading to
1-16     the farm;
1-17                 (2)  machinery used exclusively for the purpose of
1-18     drilling water wells; or
1-19                 (3)  construction machinery that is not designed to
1-20     transport persons or property on a public highway.
1-21           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999.
1-22           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-23     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-24     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
 2-1     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
 2-2     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.