BILL ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 3079

By: Hughes

Culture, Recreation & Tourism

Committee Report (Substituted)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Current law prohibits the possession, sale, or purchase of certain game, but allows the sale of inedible parts of a deer, including the hide, antlers, bones, hooves, and sinew.

C.S.H.B. 3079 allows the sale of feathers, bones, or feet of a game bird other than a migratory game bird and the sale of the feathers of a migratory game bird in accordance with federal law. The bill also allows the sale of the hair, hide, antlers, bones, hooves, horns, skulls, or sinew, as applicable, of pronghorn antelope, deer, desert bighorn sheep, collared peccary or javelina, red squirrel, or grey squirrel.  

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.

ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 3079 amends the Parks and Wildlife Code to add to the exceptions to the prohibition against the sale of certain game protected by Texas law the following inedible parts: the feathers, bones, or feet of a game bird other than a migratory game bird that was lawfully taken or is lawfully possessed; the hair, hide, antlers, bones, horns, skull, hooves, or sinew, as applicable, of a deer, pronghorn antelope, desert bighorn sheep, collared peccary or javelina, red squirrel, or grey squirrel; or the feathers of a migratory game bird in accordance with federal law.

C.S.H.B. 3079 provides that the changes in law made by the bill apply to any sale of inedible parts occurring on or after the effective date of the act, regardless of the date the parts were acquired by the seller.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2009.

COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE

C.S.H.B. 3079 differs from the original by allowing the sale of the feathers, bones, or feet of a game bird other than a migratory game bird that was lawfully taken or is lawfully possessed, whereas the original allows the sale of such parts of a non-migratory game bird that are lawfully taken or possessed. The substitute removes a provision in the original that requires all inedible parts of game animals allowed to be sold to be lawfully taken or possessed and adds a provision not in the original to allow the sale of certain inedible parts of a collared peccary.