HBA-MSH C.S.H.B. 1330 77(R)BILL ANALYSIS Office of House Bill AnalysisC.S.H.B. 1330 By: Zbranek Public Education 4/29/2001 Committee Report (Substituted) BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The Public Access Initiative created by the commissioner of education was designed to provide public education stakeholders with access to timely information for educational planning and decision-making. The projects is funded in part by the Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund (TIF) and supplemented with Texas Education Agency (TEA) dollars. In recent years, regional Education Service Centers (ESCs) have become Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in order to offer Internet access to school districts. The results of the project have been successful, but have created an after the fact problem. Internet access provided by ESCs is often open to the general public and inappropriate materials that do not relate to educational purposes are also accessed using the Internet service provided by the center. Independent ISPs are concerned that using TIF or TEA subsidies to create a publically supported business constitutes unfair competition against private ISPs. C.S.H.B. 1330 requires centers that provide Internet service to verify that subscribers are students, teachers, or school personnel and provide a mechanism to block access to websites containing obscene material. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that this bill does not expressly delegate any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution. ANALYSIS C.S.H.B. 1330 amends the Education Code to require a regional education service center (center) that provides Internet service to public schools to verify that each subscriber to the Internet service is a public school student, teacher, or employee. The bill requires the center to adopt rules to ensure that the Internet service provides a mechanism to block or filter Internet access to websites containing obscene materials. EFFECTIVE DATE On passage, or if the Act does not receive the necessary vote, the Act takes effect September 1, 2001. COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL TO SUBSTITUTE C.S.H.B. 1330 differs from the original by requiring a regional education service center (center) to verify that each subscriber to, rather than person using, the Internet service is a public school student, teacher, or employee. The substitute requires each center to ensure that the Internet service provides a mechanism to block access to obscene materials rather than to ensure that the Internet service cannot be used to gain access to materials that do not have a legitimate educational purpose. The substitute removes the requirement that a center restrict a person using the Internet service to not more than 35 hours of use each week.