By: Hancock S.B. No. 434
(In the Senate - Filed February 7, 2013; February 13, 2013,
read first time and referred to Committee on Natural Resources;
April 24, 2013, reported favorably by the following vote: Yeas 7,
Nays 2; April 24, 2013, sent to printer.)
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
relating to the procedural requirements for action by the Texas
Commission on Environmental Quality on applications for production
area authorizations.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. Subsection (d), Section 27.0513, Water Code, is
amended to read as follows:
(d) Notwithstanding Sections 5.551, 5.556, 27.011, and
27.018, an application for an authorization submitted after
September 1, 2007, is an uncontested matter not subject to a
contested case hearing or the hearing requirements of Chapter 2001,
Government Code[, unless the authorization seeks any of the
following:
[(1) an amendment to a restoration table value;
[(2) the initial establishment of monitoring wells for
any area covered by the authorization, including the location,
number, depth, spacing, and design of the monitoring wells, unless
the executive director uses the recommendation of an independent
third-party expert chosen by the commission; or
[(3) an amendment to the type or amount of bond
required for groundwater restoration or by Section 27.073 to assure
that there are sufficient funds available to the state for
groundwater restoration or the plugging of abandoned wells in the
area by a third-party contractor].
SECTION 2. Subsections (e) and (f), Section 27.0513, Water
Code, are repealed.
SECTION 3. The change in law made by this Act applies only
to an application for an authorization that is submitted to the
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on or after the effective
date of this Act. An application for an authorization that was
submitted to the commission before the effective date of this Act is
governed by the law in effect at the time the application was
submitted, and the former law is continued in effect for that
purpose.
SECTION 4. 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, 2013.
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