| TO: | Honorable George "Buddy" West, Chair, House Committee on Energy Resources |
| FROM: | John S. O'Brien, Deputy Director, Legislative Budget Board |
| IN RE: | HB2586 by Hilderbran (Relating to a requirement that a common carrier or pipeline owner or operator report contamination. ), Committee Report 1st House, Substituted |
The bill would require that an oil and gas operator who observes or detects any petroleum based contamination of soil or water in the proximity of a pipeline when in the process of placement, repair, replacement, or maintenance, to file a report within 24 hours to the Railroad Commission and the landowner. The bill also would require the Railroad Commission to collect a sample of the soil from the contaminated land. The bill also would release an operator that files a contamination report from all liability to the state for the cleanup of contamination covered by a report, except for any contamination caused by the operator. In addition, the bill prohibits the use of money in the Oil Field Cleanup Account No. 145 to pay costs related to contamination reports.
This estimate assumes that the Railroad Commission would be responsible for collecting and analyzing an estimated 150 soil samples per year at an average cost of $150,000 in contractor services. This estimate assumes that these costs would be paid out of the General Revenue Fund, but they would not be significant to the Railroad Commission's overall agency General Revenue appropriations.
| Source Agencies: | 455 Railroad Commission, 582 Commission on Environmental Quality
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| LBB Staff: | JOB, WK, ZS, TL
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