2025 · Regular session · House bill
HB1606
Electricity customers must periodically receive information with their bills explaining how to request vegetation management near transmission or distribution lines.
Official caption: Relating to notice provided to a retail electric customer of the procedure for requesting vegetation management near a transmission or distribution line.
Official report lists House author(s): Metcalf, Johnson, Howard. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.
Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.
Bill highlights
Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.
- Electricity customers must periodically receive information with their bills explaining how to request vegetation management near transmission or distribution lines.
- For the retail-provider, municipal and cooperative provisions, this information is added to existing notices about controlled power shutoffs, critical-care or critical-load status, how to apply for that status, and reducing electricity use during potential shutoffs.
- The law took effect September 1, 2025.
What does it do?
Electricity customers must periodically receive information with their bills explaining how to request vegetation management near transmission or distribution lines. This can help customers find the right procedure for concerns about trees or other vegetation near power lines. The law requires the notice; it does not promise that every request will result in trimming, set a response deadline, or make the work free. Final law.
The delivery route depends on who serves the customer:
- Where an electric utility provides delivery service for a retail electric provider, the utility gives the procedure information to the provider, which periodically includes it with customer bills.
- A retail electric utility must periodically provide the information with its own retail customers’ bills.
- Municipally owned utilities and electric cooperatives must also include the procedure information periodically with their retail bills.
For the retail-provider, municipal and cooperative provisions, this information is added to existing notices about controlled power shutoffs, critical-care or critical-load status, how to apply for that status, and reducing electricity use during potential shutoffs. HB1606 does not change those eligibility rules. “Periodically” does not specify that the notice must accompany every monthly bill. Final law, Sections 1–3.
The law took effect September 1, 2025. Official history.
What changed along the way?
The official amendment index states that the bill has no amendments. All five versions—introduced, House committee, House-passed, Senate committee and enrolled—contain the same operative provisions. There are no floor-amendment proposals or conference changes to distinguish from the final law. Text-version index.
For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.
Official bill versions
Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.
Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?
Customers gain a recurring explanation of how to raise a vegetation concern, while utilities and retail providers must supply and distribute the information. Clearer requests may help direct maintenance concerns to the responsible organization, but the bill does not guarantee fewer outages or expand a customer’s property rights.
The May 7, 2025 fiscal note anticipates no state fiscal impact and no significant local-government fiscal impact. It does not give a dollar estimate or a quantified two-year or five-year projection, and it does not estimate individual customers’ savings or private providers’ compliance costs.
Review boundary: All four enacted sections, all five text versions, history, the empty amendment index and both available fiscal notes were checked. This is a notice requirement, not confirmation of actual notices, particular trimming policies or individual work requests.
Official sources
- Bill history and latest recorded action
- Bill versions, analyses and fiscal notes
- Action history and votes
- Amendment index
Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.