The commissioner of the Texas General Land Office (commissioner) adopts these rules pursuant to the Oil Spill Prevention and Response Act (OSPRA), Texas Natural Resources Code, §40.107(c)(4). OSPRA also requires the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to adopt these rules. They will incorporate these rules, after they have been adopted by the General Land Office and become effective, into their rules. These rules are applicable in the event that an unauthorized discharge of oil to coastal waters results in injury to natural resources. These rules are intended to be consistent with the National Contingency Plan and the Area Contingency Plan, which are defined in §20.10 of this title (relating to Definitions). These rules are also intended to achieve consistency, to the extent allowed by OSPRA, §40.107, with existing and proposed federal rules for assessing damages to injured natural resources. Thus, the state natural resource trustees are encouraged to cooperate and coordinate their actions with the federal trustees. The federal trustees are, of course, not bound by these rules and have the right to bring separate claims in addition to any claim made by the state trustees. Even though state and federal trustees may bring a separate claim, double recovery is prohibited. The state trustees may bring a claim for natural resource damages pursuant to their authority under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA), 33 United States Code Annotated, §2701 et seq., or under OSPRA, §40.107. The state trustees may utilize the natural resource damage assessment procedures established under the rule or under the rules adopted pursuant to OPA, or a combination of procedures drawn from both OPA and OSPRA rules. The state trustees, when utilizing some or all of the OPA procedures, will encourage the federal trustees, as defined in §20.10 of this title, to invite the responsible party to participate in the process pursuant to the procedure in §20.23 of this title (relating to Responsible Person Participation).

Source Note: The provisions of this §20.1 adopted to be effective October 19, 1994, 19 TexReg 7911; amended to be effective October 21, 2010, 35 TexReg 9318