LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD

Austin, Texas

FISCAL NOTE, 83RD LEGISLATIVE REGULAR SESSION

March 23, 2013

TO:	Honorable Joe Deshotel, Chair, House Committee on Land & Resource Management
FROM:	Ursula Parks, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:	HJR54 by Dutton (Proposing a constitutional amendment establishing the boundaries of public beaches and declaring that the state holds public beaches in trust for the use of the public.), As Introduced

The fiscal implications of the resolution cannot be determined at this time, other than the cost of publication.

The cost to the state for publication of the resolution is $108,921.

The resolution could increase costs to the General Land Office in its responsibilities to clean, maintain, and clear debris from public beaches in an indeterminate amount.

The resolution would change the definition of "public beach" as it is applied in Section 33, Article I, of the Constitution, to define a public beach as an area area either public or private extending from mean low tide to the line of vegetation, which may shift over time as a result of avulsive events or other natural forces. The resolution would remove language which stipulates that the beach includes areas over which the public has acquired a right of use or easement to or the area that has retained a right of virtue of continuous right in the public under Texas common law.

Passage of the resolution and related legislation would result in additional areas meeting the standard of "public beach" along the state's coastline. Such areas would include those that would meet the definition of "public beach" following a storm and areas that currently do not qualify as public beaches due to the lack of public road or public ferry access. Because the General Land Office (GLO) is required to clean, maintain, and clear debris from public beaches following disaster declarations, the GLO's cleanup costs in future storms could increase as a result of the bill's passage. These additional costs are not quantifiable at this time and would depend on whether a storm would hit the Texas coastline, the area that might be affected by such a storm, how powerful such a storm might be, how populated the area affected would be, the number of structures that would end up on public beaches that the GLO would be required to remove or cleanup, and the portion of cleanup costs from a disaster for which the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency would not provide reimbursement.

Local Government Impact

No significant fiscal implication to units of local government is anticipated. Because the definition of "public beaches" refers specifically to "state-owned land," the resolution's impact on local governments is not expected to be significant.

Source Agencies:

305 General Land Office and Veterans' Land Board

LBB Staff:

UP, SZ, ZS, TL