Bill Text: TX HB4207 | 2023-2024 | 88th Legislature | Comm Sub

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Bill Title: Relating to municipally owned utility vegetation management.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 4-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2023-05-11 - Placed on General State Calendar [HB4207 Detail]

Download: Texas-2023-HB4207-Comm_Sub.html

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88R26763 JXC-D
By: Troxclair, Dean, Goldman, Hefner H.B. No. 4207
Substitute the following for H.B. No. 4207:
By: Spiller C.S.H.B. No. 4207

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
relating to municipally owned utility vegetation management.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. Subchapter Z, Chapter 552, Local Government
Code, is amended by adding Section 552.915 to read as follows:
Sec. 552.915. PROHIBITION ON TRANSFER OF MUNICIPAL UTILITY
REVENUE. (a) In this section:
(1) "Commission" means the Public Utility Commission
of Texas.
(2) "Municipal utility" means an electric utility
system owned, operated, or controlled by a municipality.
(b) If the commission determines under Section 38.101,
Utilities Code, that a municipal utility's vegetation management
activities are insufficient to ensure reliable service, except as
provided by Subsection (c) and notwithstanding any other law, the
municipality may not in the fiscal year of the determination
transfer revenue to the general fund of the municipality from the
municipal utility that the municipal utility needs to conduct
sufficient vegetation management activities to ensure reliable
service.
(c) The commission shall provide the municipality with a
reasonable grace period after the commission provides a notice to
the municipal utility under Section 38.101(c), Utilities Code, in
which the municipality may continue to transfer revenue as
described by Subsection (b) while the utility alters the utility's
vegetation management activities to ensure reliable service.
SECTION 2. Section 38.101, Utilities Code, is amended to
read as follows:
Sec. 38.101. REPORT ON INFRASTRUCTURE IMPROVEMENT AND
MAINTENANCE. (a) Not later than May 1 of each year, each electric
utility and municipally owned utility shall submit to the
commission a report describing the utility's activities related to:
(1) identifying areas that are susceptible to damage
during severe weather and hardening transmission and distribution
facilities in those areas;
(2) vegetation management; and
(3) inspecting distribution poles.
(b) Each electric utility and municipally owned utility
shall include in a report required under Subsection (a) a summary of
the utility's activities related to preparing for emergency
operations.
(c) The commission shall evaluate each report submitted by a
municipally owned utility under this section and notify the utility
if the commission determines that the utility's vegetation
management activities are insufficient to ensure reliable service.
SECTION 3. This Act takes effect September 1, 2023.