BILL ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 2566

By: Dominguez

County Affairs

Committee Report (Substituted)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

It has been noted that Cameron County has experienced health and safety issues in the unincorporated areas of the county, such as the accumulation of water in improperly disposed tires, which become breeding grounds for disease-carrying mosquitoes. C.S.H.B. 2566 seeks to address these issues by authorizing the commissioners courts of certain counties to adopt and enforce certain orders relating to litter and mosquito control.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE IMPACT

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly create a criminal offense, increase the punishment for an existing criminal offense or category of offenses, or change the eligibility of a person for community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision.

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. 2566 amends the Local Government Code to authorize the commissioners court of a county located on an international border and adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico, in addition to certain statutory authority relating to the regulation of litter, to adopt and enforce orders to control the disposal of litter and the removal of illegally dumped litter from public or private property and to regulate the storage or abandonment of property, including tires and appliances, on public or private property that creates a nuisance or habitat conducive to mosquito breeding. The bill restricts the applicability of such an order to the unincorporated area of the county, authorizes the order to require the record property owner to pay for the cost of enforcing the order on the property owner's land if the commissioners court gives the property owner 30 days' written notice of the enforcement action, and prohibits the order from regulating manufactured or industrialized housing constructed to state or federal building standards in a manner that is different from regulation of site-built housing. The bill expressly does not authorize the adoption of unauthorized zoning regulations or unauthorized building regulations.

EFFECTIVE DATE

On passage, or, if the bill does not receive the necessary vote, September 1, 2019.

COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE

While C.S.H.B. 2566 may differ from the original in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following summarizes the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.

The substitute does not include an authorization for certain counties to adopt and enforce orders in the unincorporated area of the county to protect the health and safety of the public but the substitute includes provisions authorizing such a county to adopt and enforce orders in that area instead to control the disposal of litter and the removal of illegally dumped litter and to regulate the storage or abandonment of property that creates a nuisance or habitat conducive to mosquito breeding. The substitute includes specific provisions relating to such an order and to the regulations that are not authorized to be adopted.