State Legislators Start Filing Bills

It's about that time again. The pre-filing of legislation for the 80th Texas State Legislature began on Monday, November 13th. The session itself will begin January 9th and run through May 28th. The gurus supporting the State Legislature web have really been putting in the effort over the past year, and the site is now absolutely great.

We'll be tracking any bills that may directly impact criminal environmental enforcement, and some that are just interesting from the environmental management viewpoint. If we miss one that you think is important, please let us know at ockels@tidrc.org and we'll add it to the list.

So far, we notice the following new proposed legislation:

H.B. 32 (Berman) would modify THSC Section 365.012(f) by creating a Class A misdemeanor to discard a "lighted match, a lighted cigarette or cigar, or other lighted smoking material" from a motor vehicle. More info.

H.B. 147 (Phillips) would add a new Texas Water Code provision [Sec. 7.034] that gives the TCEQ the option to let a municipality use any portion of an administrative penalty to fix the underlying problem in the municipal facility that resulted in the penalty being assessed. Currently, one of the statutory limits on Supplemental Environmental Projects (see TWC Sec 7.067. Supplemental Environmental Projects) is that "[t]he commission may not approve a project that is necessary to bring a respondent into compliance with environmental laws or that is necessary to remediate environmental harm caused by the respondent's alleged violation." Apparently the intention of H.B. 147 is to enable the TCEQ to allow a municipality to use administrative penalties to actually address the underlying issue, if TCEQ staff wanted to approve a S.E.P. project to do that. The proposal seems like a good idea to me. Given the limited funds of many small communities, and the regular turn-over in staff and elected officials who often inherit problems, it only makes sense to focus scarce resources on actually fixing the underlying problem. More info.

S.B. 93 (Gallegos) would add several new sections to THSC 382 (the Texas Clean Air Act) that would mandate increased daily fence-line monitoring of air emissions by "major sources," establish programs to study the impact of air contaminates on public health, and establish other parameters for commission actions related to air contaminants. This is a relatively long (nine pages) and though provoking piece of proposed legislation, and is must-reading if you have an interest in Texas air quality regulation and monitoring. More info.