Desalination, Economic Benefit, and More

Environmental Insider News, Feb 25, 2003

State representative Dianne White Delisi has filed House Bill 695, which provides an exemption from the franchise tax for corporations engaged in manufacturing, selling, or installing desalination devices. The bill also allows a corporation to deduct from its apportioned taxable capital the amortized cost of a desalination device or from its apportioned taxable earned surplus 10% of the amortized cost of a desalination device under certain conditions. In other environment-related legislation -

- House Bill 877 (Rodriguez) - requires the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to ensure, to the extent practicable, that the administrative penalty amount in each enforcement case is at least equal to the value of any economic benefit gained by the alleged violator through the violation. Current law only requires that economic benefit gained through a violation be considered by TCEQ in determining the penalty amount, and in many cases the penalty is far less than the economic benefit from the violation.

- House Bill 942 (Chisum) - exempts from bond requirements persons who have no responsibility over a wellbore, including a water hauler, pipeline company, or well plugger.

- House Bill 975 (Puente) - authorizes the Texas Department of Health to assess a fee for each water well drilled in the amount determined by TDH rule for the purpose of plugging abandoned or deteriorated wells. These fees would be deposited into a new water well plugging account in the general revenue fund, and no more than 20% of deposited funds could be spent on administrative costs. The fund would pay for plugging wells in which the landowner or other possessor cannot be located or lacks sufficient assets to plug the well properly.

- House Bill 1001 (Elkins) - sets a maximum $25 fine for speeding less than 20 mph on a part of the highway system that has an environmental speed limit and bars such offenses from being considered when setting car insurance rates.

- House Bill 1005 (Haggerty) - adds flexibility for TCEQ in decisions to issue emergency orders suspending operations of, or setting penalties against, rock crushers or batch concrete plants.

- House Bill 1021 (Villarreal) - requires municipalities and counties to remove litter on railroad rights-of-way and increases punishment for those found guilty of littering on a right-of-way.

- House Bill 1110 (Luna) - provides that money in the oil spill cleanup fund may be used to implement the coastal management program and ups the fund balance to $40 million.

- House Bill 1138 (Van Arsdale) - extends various powers of nonprofit water supply and sewer service corporations beyond Harris County.

- House Bill 1148 (Miller) - requires TCEQ to issue a temporary windup permit to a person whose permit to operate a concentrated animal feeding operation is revoked.

- House Bill 1150 (Puente) - includes as a venue under the law governing sports and community venue projects a watershed protection and preservation project, a conservation easement, an open-space preservation program intended to protect water, or any water project authorized under Chapter 401 of the Local Government Code or under the Water Code.

- House Bill 1151 (Puente) - allows municipalities to bring civil actions for enforcement of ordinances relating to the regulation of municipal easements in areas contiguous to a lake owned by the municipality that is a source of water supply and to the authority to assess reasonable fees for recreational use of the lake. [See also Senate Bill 550 (Duncan).]

- House Bill 1152 (Puente) - authorizes nonprofit water supply corporations outside Harris County to establish and enforce reasonable customer water conservation practices and prohibit excessive or wasteful uses of potable water, and provides for enforcement of penalties against violators.

- House Bill 1185 (Chisum) - requires that plans for the assessment or testing of pipelines provide for in-line inspection, pressure tests, direct assessment, or another method approved by the Railroad Commission and allows the RRC to conduct a hearing regarding the use of an alternative pipeline assessment or testing method.

-House Bill 1219 (Haggerty) - provides for a 180-day exemption for portable facilities that are engaged in crushing concrete and other materials produced by the demolition of a structure at that location if they are primarily being crushed for use at that location.

- House Bill 1231 (Geren) - authories the Texas Transportation Commission to, by rule, set a fee per ton on barges using the Gulf Coast Intracoastal Waterway, which is also recognized for its economic benefit to Texas. The bill also authorizes the Commission to contract with a landowner for use of land as a disposal site for dredged material and allows the open bay disposal of dredged material during November, December, and January and in emergencies.

- House Bill 1248 (Wayne Smith) - bars the application of Class B sludge on a land application unit without a permit except for persons who hold a registration for beneficial use of Class B sludge via land application and who, prior to September 1, 2002, had submitted an administratively complete application for a permit.