| (a) The following words and terms, when used in this
subchapter, shall have the following meanings, unless the context
clearly indicates otherwise:
(1) City--The city or the municipality that assessed
an annual charge pursuant to Texas Natural Resources Code, §117.102(b)(1),
or Texas Utilities Code, §121.2025(b)(1).
(2) Director--The director of the Oversight and Safety
Division or the director's delegate.
(3) Pipeline--An owner or an operator of a hazardous
liquid, carbon dioxide, or natural gas pipeline facility that is located
in a public right-of-way in the city.
(4) Public right-of-way in the city--Public roads,
highways, streets, alleys, streams, canals, or other public ways located
within a city and maintained by the city.
(5) Regulating a pipeline facility--Administering,
supervising, inspecting, and otherwise regulating the location of
a pipeline facility, including maintaining records and maps of the
location of the pipeline facility.
(b) This subchapter implements the authority of the
Commission to hear an appeal from a pipeline that has been assessed
an annual charge pursuant to Texas Natural Resources Code, §117.102(b)(1),
or Texas Utilities Code, §121.2025(b)(1).
(c) Under Texas Natural Resources Code, §117.102(d),
and Texas Utilities Code, §121.2025(d), the Commission has exclusive
jurisdiction to determine whether a city's annual charge is authorized
under Texas Natural Resources Code, §117.102(b)(1), or Texas
Utilities Code, §121.2025(b)(1). Texas Natural Resources Code, §117.102,
and Texas Utilities Code, §121.2025, do not affect the validity
or enforceability of a contract entered into before September 1, 2005,
by a municipality and the owner or operator of a hazardous liquid,
carbon dioxide, or gas pipeline, or the enforceability of a charge
assessed by a municipality before September 1, 2006, under an ordinance
adopted on or before September 1, 2004. Texas Natural Resources Code, §117.102,
and Texas Utilities Code, §121.2025, apply to a charge assessed
by a municipality on or after September 1, 2005, under an ordinance
adopted after September 1, 2004; and on or after September 1, 2006,
under an ordinance regardless of the date of adoption of the ordinance.
(d) The Commission will hear an appeal filed under
this subchapter de novo. The appeal will be handled by the Hearings
Division pursuant to this subchapter; the Commission's rules of Practice
and Procedure, 16 Texas Administrative Code Chapter 1; and the Commission's
general standards for establishing just and reasonable rates. The
examiners assigned to the appeal may require that the city send notice
of an appeal filed under this subchapter to all pipelines that the
city identifies as having been assessed an annual charge within one
year preceding the filing of the appeal. The examiners may exercise
their discretion in deciding whether to permit intervention by another
pipeline or to join another pipeline as a necessary party to an appeal.
(e) A pipeline that files or intervenes in an appeal
under this subchapter and the city that assessed the charge being
appealed shall share the costs incurred by the Commission in connection
with the appeal, pursuant to §7.6007 of this title (relating
to Procedure for Determining and Sharing of the Commission's Costs).
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