HBA-NLM, ALS S.B. 938 76(R)BILL ANALYSIS Office of House Bill AnalysisS.B. 938 By: Armbrister Land & Resource Management 5/7/1999 Committee Report (Amended) BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Currently in Texas, where the extraterritorial jurisdiction of a municipality extends into a county that has a ground water conservation district, an overlap of authority occurs between the district and the municipality which can result in duplicate or conflicting regulation. This is particularly true in instances in which a municipality uses its authority to control land uses and development, rather than affect water pollution. The purpose of this bill is to allow cities to exercise their authority within their extraterritorial jurisdiction only if the water district yields to the municipality's authority. S.B. 938 prevents a municipality with any extraterritorial jurisdiction in a county that has at least one groundwater conservation district and is not the county in which the majority of the municipality's corporate boundaries are located from enforcing a water pollution control and abatement program or from regulating nonpoint source water pollution in that county without the consent of the county and the county's groundwater conservation districts. 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 Subchapter E, Chapter 26, Water Code, by adding Section 26.181, as follows: Sec. 26.181. LIMITATION ON WATER POLLUTION CONTROL AUTHORITY OF CERTAIN MUNICIPALITIES. Prohibits a municipality, that has any part of its extraterritorial jurisdiction in a county having at least one groundwater conservation district and that is not the county in which the majority of the territory inside the municipality's corporate boundaries is located, from enforcing a water pollution control and abatement program or regulating or controlling nonpoint source water pollution in that county unless the municipality has the written consent of the county and the groundwater conservation districts in that county. SECTION 2.Effective date: September 1, 1999. SECTION 3.Emergency clause. EXPLANATION OF AMENDMENTS Amendment # 1 Amends S.B. 938 in SECTION 1 (proposed Section 26.181, Water Code) by creating Subsections (a) and (b) from proposed text, and by adding Subsection (c). The new Subsection (c) provides that the provisions of this section do not apply to a municipality located in a county in which a subsidence district is located, or a municipality with a population of less than 160,000 that is located in two counties.