By:  Duncan                                           S.B. No. 1797
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                       AN ACT
 1-1     relating to services of a gas utility provided to a school
 1-2     district.
 1-3           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-4           SECTION 1.  Subchapter F, Chapter 104, Utilities Code, is
 1-5     amended by adding Section 104.2545 to read as follows:
 1-6           Sec. 104.2545.  REQUIRED SERVICE TO SCHOOL DISTRICT.  (a)  In
 1-7     this section, "service site" means facilities or buildings operated
 1-8     by a school district or a group of adjacent facilities or buildings
 1-9     operated by a school district within one contiguous geographical
1-10     area.
1-11           (b)  Unless the utility is prohibited by other law from
1-12     providing the service and if sufficient pipeline capacity is
1-13     available on an existing facility of the utility to provide the
1-14     service, a gas utility or municipally owned utility may not refuse
1-15     to provide service to a school district at a service site, at rates
1-16     established as provided by Subsection (c), the following services:
1-17                 (1)  the sale of gas;
1-18                 (2)  the transportation of an annual average of 10
1-19     million British thermal units or more each day of gas that is:
1-20                       (A)  taken as a royalty in kind; and
1-21                       (B)  owned by the state or managed by a marketing
1-22     program operated by the state or by a state agency; or
1-23                 (3)  a combination of the services described by
1-24     Subdivisions (1) and (2).
 2-1           (c)  A utility shall provide a service described by
 2-2     Subsection (b) at rates provided by a written contract negotiated
 2-3     between the utility and the state or a state agency.  If the
 2-4     utility and the state or state agency are not able to agree to a
 2-5     contract rate, a fair and reasonable rate may be determined for the
 2-6     school district, as a rate for a separate class of service, by the
 2-7     railroad commission.
 2-8           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999.
 2-9           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
2-10     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
2-11     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
2-12     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
2-13     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.