American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2019 - 33

Justice League.
Although nearly a dozen eminent domain bills were introduced, Stevens says,
companion bills SB 421 by Senator Lois
Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, and HB 991 by
Representative DeWayne Burns, R-Cleburne, became the primary vehicles.
Among CCI's objections to the bills,
Longanecker lists, were restrictive initial
offer requirements, narrow easement
term provisions, and landowner meeting
notice and timing constraints-all of
which he said would invite litigation-as
well as an automatic assumption of land
value diminution without objective proof.
Another problem was TPPR's insistence that condemners pay all attorney
fees, Stevens adds commenting, "We
agreed that the initial offer should be relevant and within a reasonable amount of
appraised value. We also agreed to
landowner meetings, with some caveats.
But what the other side kept coming back
with we felt had the potential for costly litigation and always included attorney fees."
Two years ago, Stevens recalls, CCI
believed it had negotiated a good-faith
compromise with TPPR, but when that
bill moved from the Senate to the House,
TPPR sent a scathing letter accusing the
legislature's leadership of failing to pro-

tect private property rights. "As a result,"
he says, "nobody would pick up the bill
and it died."
This year, Longanecker outlines,
House Committee of Land & Resource
Management Chairman Tom Craddick,
R-Midland, amended SB 421 after it
came from the Senate. "The revised version addressed the primary issues of concern held by proponents of Senator
Kolkhorst's original version: initial offers, easement terms and landowner
meetings," he details. "Chairman Craddick's version, however, implemented
those provisions in a way that actually
would have been possible to comply with
and would not have invited additional litigation."
According to Stevens, Craddick also
asked the parties to agree to a 10-year
moratorium on additional eminent domain legislation, to which he says the
CCI parties agreed along with the Farm
Bureau. "The Wildlife Federation and the
Southwestern Cattle Raisers did not
sign," he says. "That is where it stopped."
"At the end of the day," Longanecker
concludes, "the current system is better
than adopting overreaching legislation in
the name of private property rights, when
in reality it only would cause infrastruc-

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ture project delays, denials, increased litigation and economic harm to our state."
The Alliance doesn't disagree with
that, Stevens allows. Still, he says, "It is
hard to be satisfied with the status quo
when some of your best partners-your
landowners-aren't happy. We would like
to have seen a compromise bill to put this
issue to bed."
Other Legislation
Among other significant oil and gas
bills the legislature passed, associations
report, were HB 3557, which provides
critical infrastructure protection for
pipelines; HB 3838, a royalty scam bill;
and SB 533, which replaces Texas' expired 10-year, 50% severance tax credit
for inactive wells put back on line after
three years with a five-year, 50% credit
for wells put back into production after
two years.
"This legislation was a priority for
TIPRO and we supported it throughout
the legislative process," says Longanecker of the bill signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott on May 7.
HB 3557 makes damaging critical infrastructure, including pipelines, a thirddegree felony punishable by up to 10
years in prison, and makes impairing or

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American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2019

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