California's First Corporate Emissions Reports Are Due; Texas Bills Would Require Workers' Comp for Builders and a $100,000 Oil Waste Fee

The bottom line today

Some of the first corporate climate reports due in California today can be a single page on company letterhead [2]. That option, written into the rule for this year only, is the most business-friendly thing the Air Resources Board has done with SB 253, and it deserves credit. The bill that follows it is the problem: an equal flat fee on every covered company, with notices due by December 10 [2]. Meanwhile, Texas kept filing bills for 2027, and the one with the widest reach would end optional workers’ compensation for builders [4].

CA California SB 253: the first emissions reports, and the fee behind them

What it does. The board’s initial regulation sets November 10, 2026, as the deadline for Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions reports, pushed back from August 10 [2]. It covers any partnership, corporation or LLC organized in the United States with more than $1 billion in total annual revenue that does business in California, measuring revenue by the lesser of its two previous fiscal years [2]. Nonprofits, companies regulated as insurers, majority government-owned companies, and firms whose only California activity is wholesale power trading or payroll are excluded [2]. Reports may be consolidated at the parent level, and Scope 3 is not required this year [2].

For this first report only, a company may submit the emissions data it already had or was collecting on or before December 5, 2024, or a letterhead statement that it had none [2].

Where it stands. The board adopted the regulation February 26 [1]. According to Akin Gump, the Office of Administrative Law approved it effective October 12, CARB opened a voluntary online platform for submissions, and Scope 3 reporting is scheduled to begin in 2027 [3].

What will California’s climate disclosure fee cost? The rule does not say yet. The board’s executive officer must send each company a written fee notice by December 10, and payment is due within 60 days [2]. The formula divides the program’s required revenue, plus a 10% contingency and any debt, equally among reporting entities [2]. The board puts setup costs at about $20.7 million, funded by a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund loan that must be repaid, and ongoing costs at about $13.9 million a year [1]. Each day a fee goes unpaid counts as a separate violation [2].

Pratt’s read. The board says investors and consumers value the transparency and that the European Union and Britain already run similar systems [1]. Fair enough, and the first-year relief is real. The flat fee is not neutral, though: a company just over the $1 billion line pays the same as the largest firm in the country, plus a 10% cushion and the loan repayment [1, 2]. The board says it considered alternatives and found none less burdensome and equally effective [1]. A fee scaled to revenue would raise the same money. The companion climate-risk law, SB 261, remains under a Ninth Circuit injunction issued in Chamber of Commerce v. Sanchez, and the board says it will not enforce it for now [1]. The expensive year for SB 253 is 2027, when Scope 3 arrives [3].

TX Texas SB 333 / HB 1078: workers’ comp becomes mandatory in construction

What it does. Identical bills by Sen. César Blanco and Rep. Armando Walle rewrite Labor Code Section 406.096, which now deals with coverage on public building contracts [4, 5]. The new first subsection says a contractor “shall provide workers’ compensation insurance coverage for each employee of the contractor,” and the same for every subcontractor [4]. The public-project certification rules move to a new subsection, and contractors could meet the requirement through a group plan, an owner-controlled consolidated insurance program or another method [4]. It applies to building or construction contracts signed on or after September 1, 2027, its effective date [4].

Where it stands. SB 333 was filed November 10 [9]. As this release noted on November 9, nothing filed now can be referred until the Legislature convenes January 12 [10].

Pratt’s read. Texas has held since 1913 that private employers choose whether to carry workers’ comp, and it is the principle this bill breaks for one industry [6]. The record here doesn’t include the authors’ case for the bill. The strongest one is in the Department of Insurance’s own survey: only 30% of non-subscribing employers offered an alternative occupational benefit plan in 2022, and the department does not regulate those plans [6]. But construction already has one of the lowest non-subscription rates in the state, 16% in 2022 for the mining, utilities and construction group [6]. Subscription has slipped among small employers, and the most common reason non-subscribers gave was having too few employees, at 26% [6]. Those are the contractors who would pay, on every new job, from the first hire.

TX Texas HB 262: a necessity test and a $100,000 fee for oil waste sites

What it does. Rep. Eddie Morales’s bill covers “stationary commercial surface disposal” facilities, which take oil and gas waste for pay, and widens that definition to include sites that dispose of drill cuttings and drilling mud through a stationary treatment facility [7]. Operators of those facilities must post a performance bond or other financial security; today the Railroad Commission may require one but need not [7]. The commission could not approve a new permit unless the applicant shows the “necessity for an additional” facility in its market area, with a map of every permitted facility and a count of oil and gas wells within 30 miles [7]. Each new application carries a nonrefundable $100,000 fee; renewals and modifications of permits in effect before September 1, 2027, are exempt [7].

Pratt’s read. Bonding is defensible. A disposal site that closes without money set aside is a cleanup bill for someone, and the bill sends forfeited security to the oil and gas regulation and cleanup fund [7]. The necessity test is another matter. It makes a new entrant prove the market doesn’t already have enough capacity, and the $100,000 fee falls only on newcomers, since existing permits renew without it [7]. Producers pay for less competition in disposal prices. Energy is the industry Texas can least afford to slow, and a certificate-of-need rule rarely lowers anyone’s costs.

TX Texas SB 332: 90 days to bill

What it does. Sen. Angela Paxton’s bill amends Section 146.002 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code [8]. Providers now have until the first day of the 11th month after service to bill a patient, a health plan without a contract term or a government payer without a set deadline [8]. SB 332 cuts that to 90 days after the later of the date of service or the date the responsible person is identified [8]. Contract deadlines and federal or state billing rules still control where they exist [8]. It applies only to services provided after it takes effect, immediately with a two-thirds vote or otherwise September 1, 2027 [8].

Pratt’s read. Patients gain from a bill that arrives while the visit is still remembered. Hospitals and physician groups lose roughly seven months, by this column’s count, and the clock starts at the visit for anyone whose payer is already known [8]. Ninety days is a tight window for complicated accounts. The bill does not amend the other sections of Chapter 146 [8].

On the calendar

California’s fee notices are due by December 10, with payment 60 days later [2]. The Texas Legislature convenes at noon January 12, 2027 [10]; SB 333, HB 1078 and HB 262 would take effect September 1, 2027 [4, 5, 7], and SB 332 could take effect sooner with two-thirds of each chamber [8].