LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD
Austin, Texas
FISCAL NOTE, 77th Regular Session
March 19, 2001
TO: Honorable Warren Chisum, Chair, House Committee on
Environmental Regulation
FROM: John Keel, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE: HB3584 by Hochberg (Relating to the monitoring and
regulation of air pollution emissions upsets or
accidents; providing civil and administrative
penalties.), As Introduced
**************************************************************************
* Estimated Two-year Net Impact to General Revenue Related Funds for *
* HB3584, As Introduced: positive impact of $0 through the biennium *
* ending August 31, 2003. *
**************************************************************************
General Revenue-Related Funds, Five-Year Impact:
****************************************************
* Fiscal Year Probable Net Positive/(Negative) *
* Impact to General Revenue Related *
* Funds *
* 2002 $0 *
* 2003 0 *
* 2004 0 *
* 2005 0 *
* 2006 0 *
****************************************************
All Funds, Five-Year Impact:
***************************************************************************
*Fiscal Probable Savings/(Cost) from Probable Revenue Gain/(Loss) *
* Year Clean Air Account/ GR-Dedicated from Clean Air Account/ *
* 0151 GR-Dedicated *
* 0151 *
* 2002 $(1,600,000) $1,600,000 *
* 2003 (1,600,000) 1,600,000 *
* 2004 (1,600,000) 1,600,000 *
* 2005 (1,600,000) 1,600,000 *
* 2006 0 0 *
***************************************************************************
Fiscal Analysis
The bill would require all facilities to report to the Texas Natural
Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC) each or air pollution emission
caused by an unavoidable event or "upset," and allow the TNRCC to collect
a fee to recover costs of maintaining records related to such reports.
The bill would require that permitted facilities: install and operate
devices to detect and document the occurrence of reportable upsets; that
such entities perform technical analyses to identify the cause of
emissions events that exceed established thresholds set by TNRCC; and
that such entities develop action plans to minimize future unauthorized
emissions events.
The bill also would require that the TNRCC conduct a pilot project using
aircraft-borne monitoring devices to detect unauthorized air pollution
emissions events from permitted facilities and to report the findings of
the report to the 79th Legislature. A $200 fee would be imposed by the
bill on each reportable upset.
The Act would take effect September 1, 2001 and expire on September 1,
2005.
Methodology
Since TNRCC currently receives and compiles information on "upsets" from
approximately 8,000 permitted facilities per year, and since the number
of "upsets" is not expected to increase significantly upon passage of the
bill, it is not anticipated that reporting requirements of the bill
would result in significant cost increases or revenue collections by the
agency.
Assuming 8,000 upsets per year and a fee of $200 per upset, it is
estimated that the TNRCC would collect approximately $1.6 million per
year in each of the four years of the pilot project required by the
bill. This estimate assumes TNRCC would hire a professional services
contractor to conduct the pilot project for the entire $1.6 million in
anticipated revenues.
Local Government Impact
A unit of local government operating a facility affected by the bill,
such as an electric power generation plant, would be required to pay the
$200 per upset event required by the bill. This is not expected to be a
significant cost to local governments.
A unit of local government owning and operating an affected facility that
currently has no continuous measuring and monitoring system would be
required to purchase and install such a device. The TNRCC estimates that
the cost of such a device would be approximately $200,000.
Source Agencies: 582 Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission,
304 Comptroller of Public Accounts
LBB Staff: JK, CL, MF, TL