1-1     By:  Brown                                             S.B. No. 813
 1-2           (In the Senate - Filed March 2, 1999; March 4, 1999, read
 1-3     first time and referred to Committee on Natural Resources;
 1-4     March 11, 1999, reported favorably by the following vote:  Yeas 4,
 1-5     Nays 0; March 11, 1999, sent to printer.)
 1-6                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-7                                   AN ACT
 1-8     relating to the lien of the Railroad Commission of Texas on
 1-9     well-site equipment to secure the cost of plugging an oil or gas
1-10     well.
1-11           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-12           SECTION 1.  Subsection (c), Section 89.043, Natural Resources
1-13     Code, is amended to read as follows:
1-14           (c)  On or before the 30th day before the date the commission
1-15     enters into a contract to plug a delinquent inactive well, the
1-16     commission shall send a notice by certified mail to the operator of
1-17     the well at the address last reported to the commission as required
1-18     by Section 91.142 [of this code] and commission rules.  The notice
1-19     shall direct the operator to plug the well and shall state that:
1-20                 (1)  the commission may plug the well unless the
1-21     operator requests a hearing not later than the 10th day after the
1-22     date the operator receives the notice;
1-23                 (2)  if the commission plugs the well, all well-site
1-24     equipment will be presumed to have been abandoned and the
1-25     commission may dispose of the equipment and hydrocarbons from the
1-26     well as provided by Section 89.085 [of this code]; [and]
1-27                 (3)  the attorney general may file suit against the
1-28     operator to recover the plugging costs if the commission plugs the
1-29     well and the operator fails to reimburse the commission for the
1-30     plugging costs; and
1-31                 (4)  the commission has a lien on all well-site
1-32     equipment under Section 89.083.
1-33           SECTION 2.  Subsection (e), Section 89.083, Natural Resources
1-34     Code, is amended to read as follows:
1-35           (e)  The lien is extinguished as to any item of well-site
1-36     equipment that is lawfully removed by any person other than the
1-37     operator or a nonoperator pursuant to a lien, lease, judgment,
1-38     written contract, or security agreement before the commission sends
1-39     notice under Section 89.043(c) [enters into a plugging contract].
1-40     A person may not remove from an inactive well site any equipment
1-41     [Equipment] necessary to prevent the well from serving as a conduit
1-42     for the passage of oil, gas, saltwater, oil and gas wastes, or
1-43     freshwater from one stratum or formation to another or to the
1-44     surface or from the surface downward [may not be removed from an
1-45     inactive well site] except in the course of plugging in accordance
1-46     with commission rules.
1-47           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-48     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-49     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-50     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-51     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
1-52     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
1-53     passage, and it is so enacted.
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