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Estimated Two-year Net
Impact to General Revenue Related Funds for HB 3649, Committee Report 1st House, Substituted: an
impact of $0 through the biennium ending August 31, 2017.
The bill would make no
appropriation but could provide the legal basis for an appropriation of funds
to implement the provisions of the bill.
HB 3649 would amend the Parks and Wildlife Code by allowing the
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to issue lifetime hunting licenses to
nonresident landowners.
This legislation would allow a nonresident landowner to
purchase a lifetime hunting license if a person is related to the landowner by
the first degree of consanguinity.
Additionally, that person who is related to the nonresident landowner
must have owned property in Texas for at least 15 years.
Lastly, this legislation would give the Parks and Wildlife
Commission the authority to revoke a nonresident landowner’s lifetime hunting
license if he or she no longer owns property in Texas.
Currently, only Texas residents may purchase a lifetime
hunting license. While we are in support of this bill allowing a nonresident
landowner to obtain a lifetime hunting license, we are puzzled that it adds
arbitrary requirements that are unnecessarily burdensome. If a nonresident owns
property in this state he or she should not have to prove any familial relation
to a resident. Moreover, it is unnecessary
that a nonresident must own property before they can purchase a lifetime
hunting license.
On the one hand this benefits nonresident Texas landowners which would be a good thing but it does so in a very convoluted way. A better approach would be to simply allow anyone who wants to buy a lifetime hunting license to do so regardless of their state of residency. For these reasons we are neutral on this bill.