{"id":27760,"date":"2013-05-20T09:05:43","date_gmt":"2013-05-20T14:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=27760"},"modified":"2013-05-20T10:34:26","modified_gmt":"2013-05-20T15:34:26","slug":"one-last-look-at-the-dead-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2013\/05\/20\/one-last-look-at-the-dead-bills\/","title":{"rendered":"Bid Farewell to the “Dead Bills”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Matt Stamey Staff photographer, Gainesville Sun \/Landov<\/p>

Only a small fraction of bills filed at the state legislature are ever passed into law.<\/p><\/div>\n

For the past six months, StateImpact Texas covered dozens of bills as they moved through the Texas legislature. In that time, we’ve seen a lot of measures fall by the wayside.\u00a0 Remember reading up on a bill here, and wondering where it ended up? Well, we\u2019ve compiled a list of the so-called \u201cdead bills\u201d covered in the past by StateImpact Texas.<\/p>\n

Energy<\/h4>\n

HB 55<\/a>, by Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, would have ended tax exemptions to natural gas drillers in the state. Burnam<\/a> filed a similar bill last legislative session that fared the same fate as this one.<\/p>\n

Rep. Van Taylor, R-Plano, filed HB 100<\/a>, which he said would reduce Co2 emissions by making carbon gasses more valuable to drillers looking to extract more oil and gas from unitized fields. It, along with HB 1496<\/a>, which Taylor said would change the state\u2019s eminent domain rules, was left pending in committee in March.<\/p>\n

State Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth<\/a>, had filed a bill,\u00a0SB 941<\/a>, that would require drillers to use \u201cprotective measures\u201d to prevent road damage<\/a>. It never made it out of the Senate Natural Resources Committee. A similar bill, SB 300,<\/a> which would fix roads with money coming from the state\u2019s\u00a0Rainy Day Fund<\/a>, also died.<\/p>\n

HB 379<\/a>, by\u00a0Rep. Lon Burnham<\/a>, D-Fort Worth, would have assessed a\u00a0fee on barrels of waste put into commercial injection wells. \u00a0SB 1249<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0Sen. John Carona<\/a>, R-Dallas, would have sped up the process<\/a> for fixing abandoned or faulty wells that might have caused environmental or property damage. It was left pending in the Senate Natural Resources Committee.<\/p>\n

Environment<\/h4>\n

Both the House and Senate versions of a bill<\/a> that would provide cash incentives for recycling many beverage containers as a way to reduce pollution have died.<\/p>\n

HB 3119<\/a>, which would stop private lawyers who help counties sue polluters<\/a>, was left pending in the House Committee on Environmental Regulation back in April.<\/p>\n

HB 791<\/a>, \u00a0by\u00a0Rep. Kel Seliger<\/a>, R-Amarillo, had a slew of new rules regarding the disposal of radioactive waste. None of those will be made into law after this legislative session. The measure never made it out of committee.<\/p>\n

HB 1652<\/a>, introduced by\u00a0Rep. Borris L. Miles<\/a>, D-Houston,\u00a0would protect landowners of community gardens from liability against accidents on the garden. The bill<\/a> was left pending in a house Committee.<\/p>\n

Correction: and earlier version of this piece said that HB 55 would have created tax exemptions for drillers. In fact, it would have ended existing exceptions. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Olivia Gordon is a reporting intern with StateImpact Texas.<\/em><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the past six months, StateImpact Texas covered dozens of bills as they moved through the Texas legislature. In that time, we’ve seen a lot of measures fall by the wayside.\u00a0 Remember reading up on a bill here, and wondering where it ended up? Well, we\u2019ve compiled a list of the so-called \u201cdead bills\u201d covered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":97,"featured_media":27614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[21,78,310],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27760"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/97"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}