By: Canales H.B. No. 4434
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
relating to navigation districts.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. Section 5007.001, Special District Local Laws
Code, is amended to read as follows:
Sec. 5007.001. DEFINITIONS. In this chapter:
(1) "Authority" means the Port of Houston Authority of
Harris County, Texas.
(2) "Executive director" means the executive director
of the authority.
(3) "Port commission" means the navigation and canal
commission of the authority.
(4) "Port commissioner" means a member of the port
commission.
(5) "Harbormaster" means an official who supervises
operations in the Houston Ship Channel and administers its rules.
SECTION 2. Subchapter A, Chapter 60, Water Code, is amended
by adding Section 60.005 to read as follows:
Sec. 60.005. WIDENING AND DEEPENING. A district may
solicit and accept gifts, grants, and donations from any public or
private source for the purposes of widening and deepening navigable
channels of the district.
SECTION 3. Section 66.002, Transportation Code, is amended
to read as follows:
Sec. 66.002. DEFINITIONS. In this chapter:
(1) "Board" means the board of pilot commissioners for
Harris County ports.
(2) "Consignee" means a person, including a master,
owner, agent, subagent, firm, or corporation or any combination of
those persons, who enters or clears a vessel at the office of the
collector of customs.
(3) "Harbormaster" means an official who supervises
operations in a Harris County port and administers its rules.
(4) "Harris County port" means a place in Harris
County into which a vessel enters or from which a vessel departs and
the waterway leading to that place from the Gulf of Mexico.
(5) "Pilot" means a person who is licensed as a branch
pilot or certified as a deputy branch pilot under this chapter.
(6) "Pilotage rate" means the remuneration a pilot may
lawfully charge a vessel for pilot services.
(7) "Pilot services" means acts of a pilot in
conducting a vessel through the navigable water in this state and
the ports in which the pilot is licensed or certified as a pilot.
(8) "Vessel" means an oceangoing, self-propelled
vessel.
SECTION 4. This Act takes effect September 1, 2019.