HB 2833 Dies

Direct from GEAA to you:

Shortly before 1:30 a.m. Sen. Staples attempted to suspend the regular order of business on the Senate floor (the usual motion to bring up a bill for consideration) to take up and consider HB 2833 - the infamous regulatory "takings" bill that would have torpedoed local government attempts to protect water quality (and do a lot of other things). He said that he had hoped to do more with this bill but that he was going to move to amend the bill to strike everything below the enacting clause and substitute a study of the issue rather than pursuing the provisions of the bill.

Sen. Barrientos of Austin stated that he had proposed a study in lieu of the bill earlier in May but Sen. Staples rejected it in committee. He also stated that the Lt. Governor could initiate an interim study; a bill wasn't necessary to do that. He then raised a point of order against further consideration of the bill.

After considerable discussion with the Lt. Governor and the Senate parliamentarian, Sen. Barrientos withdrew his point of order, and Sen. Staples withdrew his bill. It will not come up for consideration again. This is the last night (broadly speaking now, near 2 a.m.) that House bills may be heard on the Senate floor on second reading. The Lt. Governor just announced that the bill they are discussing now, HB 1434, will be the last bill of the evening; and indeed that bill was just killed on a point of order since it was after midnight.

HB 2833 is dead, unless its language reappears in some other legislation, and the options for that with time running out at this point are gone unless the language has already been sneaked into a bill somewhere else that we haven't caught.