HBA-RBT H.B. 3467 76(R) BILL ANALYSIS Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 3467 By: Pickett Ways & Means 4/1/1999 Introduced BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE According to Texas Department of Transportation officials, one legally-loaded 80,000-pound truck causes road damage equivalent to 9,600 cars. Overweight trucks cause even greater damage. The overweight truck problem is particularly acute on highways, bridges and city streets in communities on the Texas-Mexico border, which handle 85 percent of all U.S.-Mexico truck traffic. The Department of Public Safety and local police officers in certain cities are responsible for enforcing truck weight limitations and issuing citations to operators of overweight vehicles. Under current law, half of the proceeds from overweight vehicle fines imposed and collected by county courts at law, justices of the peace, and municipal courts must be remitted to the state comptroller of public accounts and deposited in the general revenue fund. As a result, funds from overweight vehicle fines which might otherwise be used by local governments in economically disadvantaged border communities to repair road and bridge damage are unavailable to them. H.B. 3467 requires the proceeds from overweight vehicle fines for offenses that occur within 20 miles of an international border to be deposited with local governments. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that this bill does not expressly delegate any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution. SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS SECTION 1. Amends Section 621.506(g), Transportation Code, to require a fine assessed for an offense involving a vehicle having a gross weight that is more than 5,000 pounds heavier than the vehicle's allowable gross weight that occurs within 20 miles of an international border to deposit the fine in the municipal treasury if the fine was imposed by a municipal court or to the county treasury if the fine was imposed by a justice court. SECTION 2. Makes application of this Act prospective, to a fine collected on or after the effective date, regardless of the date of the offense. SECTION 3. Effective date: September 1, 1999. SECTION 4. Emergency clause.