By Brown                                               S.B. No. 898
         76R8139 SMJ-D                           
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to grants from the water loan assistance fund for certain
 1-3     projects.
 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 15.102(b), Water Code, is amended to read
 1-6     as follows:
 1-7           (b)  The board may use the loan fund [may also be used by the
 1-8     board] to provide grants for:
 1-9                 (1)  projects that include the provision of [supplying]
1-10     water and wastewater services in economically distressed areas,
1-11     including projects involving retail distribution of those services;
1-12     and
1-13                 (2)  one or more of the following projects, if the
1-14     legislature appropriates money specifically for that purpose:
1-15                       (A)  agricultural water conservation;
1-16                       (B)  weather modification; or
1-17                       (C)  brush control.
1-18           SECTION 2.  (a)  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999.
1-19           (b)  The change in law made by this Act applies only to an
1-20     application for a grant from the water loan assistance fund that is
1-21     filed on or after the effective date of this Act.  A grant
1-22     application that is filed before the effective date of this Act is
1-23     governed by the law in effect immediately before the effective date
1-24     of this Act, and that law is continued in effect for that purpose.
 2-1           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
 2-2     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
 2-3     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
 2-4     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
 2-5     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.