A bill to provide for the authority for the successors and assigns of the Starr-Camargo Bridge Company to maintain and operate a toll bridge across the Rio Grande near Rio Grande City, Texas, and for other purposes.
Public Law 114-163 · S. 2143 · 114th Congress · began in the Senate
Signed by Barack Obama (D) on May 20, 2016 · Transportation and Public Works
Sponsor: Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)
Cosponsors: None
Passage votes
- HouseVoice vote
- SenateUnanimous consent
Data notes
The final version of the law, as each chamber passed it. A chamber that passed it by voice vote or unanimous consent has no count. “Method not stated” means the record does not say how the chamber voted. Where the record has a member-by-member vote, the “Who voted for it” section shows who voted yea.
Summary
The Congressional Research Service’s plain-language summary of what the law does.
(Sec. 1) This bill modifies the existing authority for the Starr-Camargo Bridge Company to maintain and operate a toll bridge across the Rio Grande River near Rio Grande City, Texas.
The authority, which currently expires 66 years after completion of the bridge (in 1966), is made permanent and expanded to include the successors or assigns of the company. The bridge must not consist of more than 14 lanes.
The company and its successors and assigns shall have the rights and privileges granted by federal law to the B and P Bridge Company, and may use eminent domain to acquire certain land needed for the bridge, subject to Texas laws and requirements for just compensation and public proceedings.
The company's successors and assigns may fix and charge tolls for transit over the bridge.
Those successors and assigns may also sell, assign, transfer, or mortgage the rights, powers, and privileges conferred on the company by the enacting law, to any public agency, to an international bridge authority or commission, or to a corporation.
Any such corporation may exercise such rights, powers, and privileges (including acquisition by mortgage foreclosure) as if they had been granted by the enacting law directly to the corporation.
Committees
The committees the bill was sent to, and what each did with it.
Data notes
A committee links to its page only where it exists in the current Congress; older and renamed committees are named without a link.
Related bills
1 bill the Library of Congress relates to this one.
H.R. 3688Identical bill
To provide for the authority for the successors and assigns of the Starr-Camargo Bridge Company to maintain and operate a toll bridge across the Rio Grande near Rio Grande City, Texas, and for other purposes.
Data notes
Related bills are identified by the Congressional Research Service, the House and the Senate: companion and identical bills, bills with similar text, bills that were folded into this law, and rules that brought it to the floor. A bill that is itself a public law in this site’s data links here; the others link to Congress.gov.
Timeline
From introduction to signing, newest first: the committees, the floor and the president. 19 actions.
- May 20, 2016Became lawBecame law · Became Public Law No: 114-163.
- Became lawBecame law · Signed by President.
- May 18, 2016FloorFloor · Presented to President.
- May 16, 2016FloorFloor · Motion to reconsider laid on the table Agreed to without objection.
- FloorFloor · On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill Agreed to by voice vote.
- FloorFloor · DEBATE - The House proceeded with forty minutes of debate on S. 2143.
- FloorFloor · Considered under suspension of the rules.
- FloorFloor · Mr. Royce moved to suspend the rules and pass the bill.
- Apr 20, 2016CommitteeCommittee · Ordered to be Reported by Unanimous Consent.
- CommitteeCommittee · Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held.
- Mar 21, 2016FloorFloor · Received in the House.
- CommitteeCommittee · Referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
- Mar 18, 2016FloorFloor · Message on Senate action sent to the House.
- Mar 17, 2016FloorFloor · Passed Senate without amendment by Unanimous Consent.
- Feb 24, 2016CalendarCalendar · Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 374.
- CommitteeCommittee · Committee on Environment and Public Works. Reported by Senator Inhofe without amendment. With written report No. 114-213.
- Jan 20, 2016CommitteeCommittee · Committee on Environment and Public Works. Ordered to be reported without amendment favorably.
- Oct 6, 2015CommitteeCommittee · Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
- IntroducedIntroduced · Introduced in Senate
Data notes
Every action the Library of Congress lists for the bill, from introduction to signing, plus the dated committee hearings. The source lists many steps twice (the chamber’s own entry and the Library of Congress copy, or a presidential and a became-law entry with the same words); those are shown once. Amendments are listed in their own section.
Amendments
No amendments to this bill are on record.
Data notes
Amendments offered to this bill in either chamber, as the Library of Congress records them: each with a status read from its last recorded step: agreed to, rejected, withdrawn, ruled out of order, fell with another amendment, or offered with no vote recorded (most Senate amendments are only ever offered). The wording of each amendment is the source’s. Amendments to amendments and amendments to other bills are not listed.
Official record
The bill’s full text is on Congress.gov. Data through Oct 7, 2026.