By: Nichols S.B. No. 275
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
relating to the application of new requirements for commercial
underground injection control wells to be adopted by the Texas
Commission on Environmental Quality.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. (a) As soon as practicable after the effective
date of this Act, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
shall adopt rules regulating the surface facilities associated with
new commercial wells that propose to accept nonhazardous industrial
waste for which a permit has not been issued on or before the
effective date of this Act. In this section:
(1) "Commercial well" means a Class I injection well,
as defined by commission rule, that a person may use to dispose of
hazardous or nonhazardous industrial solid wastes for a charge.
The term does not include:
(A) an injection well that is part of an
integrated waste management unit of a captured facility; or
(B) an injection well at which only waste from
facilities owned or effectively controlled by the same person is
disposed.
(2) "Captured facility" means a manufacturing or
production facility that generates an industrial solid waste or
hazardous waste that is routinely stored, processed, or disposed of
on a shared basis in an integrated waste management unit owned by,
operated by, and located within a contiguous manufacturing complex.
(b) The rules adopted under Subsection (a) of this section
may not apply to an application for a permit for an injection well:
(1) used solely for the sequestration or capture of
carbon dioxide; or
(2) for which the surface facilities are associated
with a well for which a permit is issued before the effective date
of this Act.
SECTION 2. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
shall provide that the rules adopted under Section 1 of this Act
apply to every application for a permit for a new commercial
underground injection control well that proposes to accept
industrial or municipal waste that is filed on or after the
effective date of this Act.
SECTION 3. This Act takes effect immediately if it receives
a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each house, as
provided by Section 39, Article III, Texas Constitution. If this
Act does not receive the vote necessary for immediate effect, this
Act takes effect September 1, 2009.