Do Texas disabled parking permits still get free parking, or do drivers have to pay at airports?

TX AG Opinion DM-0451: After HB 3025, where do disabled parking permits still get free parking in Texas?

Plain-English summary

Texas gives drivers who display a disabled parking permit a break on parking fees. A 1995 law, section 681.006 of the Transportation Code, exempted a vehicle with a disabled permit from any parking fee or penalty imposed by a "governmental unit," whether at a meter or in a time-limited space.

In 1997 the Legislature passed House Bill 3025. Along the way it picked up an amendment adding a new subsection (e) saying that nothing in the code exempts a driver from fees or penalties imposed by a governmental unit "for parking at a meter, in a parking garage or lot, or in a space located within the boundaries of a municipal airport." Read one way, that language could have wiped out the free-parking exemption almost everywhere. Representative Kim Brimer, who wrote the bill, asked the Attorney General what it actually meant.

The Attorney General read the new subsection narrowly. The qualifier "within the boundaries of a municipal airport" modified the entire subsection, so the exemption was removed only at municipal airports. The opinion leaned on the bill's legislative history, which described the change as a response to disabled drivers being charged again to park at DFW International Airport, and on a common-sense point: a legislature that had just created the exemption in 1995 would not have effectively repealed it the next session without saying so clearly. The opinion noted a companion bill, House Bill 580, used identical language and pointed the same way, and that disabled veterans and Medal of Honor recipients kept their broader fee exemption under a separate statute.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 1997. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

The Transportation Code provisions on disabled parking (sections 681.006 and 681.008) have been amended since 1997. Confirm the current statute before relying on where the fee exemption does or does not apply today.

Common questions

Did House Bill 3025 take away free disabled parking everywhere?
No. The Attorney General concluded the 1997 amendment removed the free-parking exemption only "within the boundaries of a municipal airport." Outside a municipal airport, a vehicle displaying a disabled parking permit remained exempt from parking fees and penalties imposed by a governmental unit, as the 1995 law provided.

Why did the AG read it that way instead of literally?
Because the bill analyses tied the change to the reimposition of fees on disabled drivers at DFW International Airport, and because it would have been unusual for the Legislature to all but repeal an exemption it had enacted just two years earlier without a clear statement that it intended to. The AG read "within the boundaries of a municipal airport" as modifying the whole subsection.

What about disabled veterans and Medal of Honor recipients?
The opinion noted that House Bill 3025 did not affect them. Under a separate statute, Transportation Code section 681.008, they remained entitled to an exemption from all parking fees charged by a governmental authority other than a branch of the federal government.

Did the exemption ever apply against the federal government?
No. The 1995 statute itself said the exemption did not apply to a fee or penalty imposed by a branch of the United States government.

Background and statutory framework

Section 681.006(a) of the Transportation Code let a qualifying vehicle park for an unlimited period in a space designated for persons with physical disabilities, and subsection (b) exempted the owner from a parking fee or penalty imposed by a governmental unit at a meter or in a time-limited space, in each case when the vehicle was operated by or for a person with a disability and displayed disabled license plates under section 502.253 or a disabled parking placard. Subsection (c) carved out fees imposed by the federal government, and subsection (d) made clear the section did not allow parking where parking was otherwise prohibited.

House Bill 3025, enacted as chapter 804 of the 1997 session laws, started as a narrow change but was amended in the House Intergovernmental Relations Committee to add subsection (e). The Attorney General resolved the ambiguity in subsection (e) using ordinary tools of statutory construction: the bill analyses, the "explanation of amendments" in the House committee report (which described the new subsection as clarifying that the code does not exempt parking fees at a meter, garage, lot, or space "within the boundaries of a municipal airport"), and the background discussion focused on DFW International Airport. A companion measure, House Bill 580 (chapter 1353), contained identical language and a House committee analysis pointing to the same reading. The opinion concluded the exemption was removed only at municipal airports.

Citations

Statutes:

• Tex. Transp. Code § 681.006 (parking fee exemption for disabled-permit vehicles)
• Tex. Transp. Code § 502.253 (disabled license plates)
• Tex. Transp. Code § 681.008 (disabled veterans and Medal of Honor recipients)
• House Bill 3025, Act of May 21, 1997, 75th Leg., R.S., ch. 804
• House Bill 580, Act of May 28, 1997, 75th Leg., R.S., ch. 1353, § 5
• Attorney General Letter Opinion 96-055 (1996)

Source

• Landing page: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/opinions/dan-morales/dm-0451
• Original PDF: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/opinion-files/opinion/1997/dm0451.pdf

Original opinion text

Best-effort transcription from a scanned PDF. Minor errors may remain — the linked PDF is authoritative.

Office of the Attorney General, State of Texas

DAN MORALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL

October 22, 1997

The Honorable Kim Brimer
Chair, Business and Industry Committee
Texas House of Representatives
P.O. Box 2910
Austin, Texas 78768-2910

Opinion No. DM-451

Re: Parking for disabled persons at airports (RQ-973)

Dear Representative Brimer:

You have requested our opinion regarding the proper construction of House Bill 3025. See Act of May 21, 1997, 75th Leg., R.S., ch. 804, 1997 Tex. Sess. Law Serv. 2633, 2633. We begin with a bit of background.

In 1995, the legislature enacted section 681.006 of the Transportation Code, which exempts from parking fees any vehicle that displays a disabled parking permit. That section provides:

(a) A vehicle may be parked for an unlimited period in a parking space or area that is designated specifically for persons with physical disabilities if:

(1) the vehicle is being operated by or for the transportation of a person with a disability; and

(2) there are:

(A) displayed on the vehicle special license plates issued under Section 502.253; or

(B) placed on the rearview mirror of the vehicle's front windshield a disabled parking placard.

(b) The owner of a vehicle is exempt from the payment of a fee or penalty imposed by a governmental unit for parking at a meter or in a space with a limitation on the length of time for parking if:

(1) the vehicle is being operated by or for the transportation of a person with a disability; and

(2) there are:

(A) displayed on the vehicle special license plates issued under Section 502.253; or

(B) placed on the rearview mirror of the vehicle's front windshield a disabled parking placard.

(c) The exemption provided by Subsection (b) does not apply to a fee or penalty imposed by a branch of the United States government.

(d) This section does not permit a vehicle to be parked at a time when or a place where parking is prohibited. [Emphasis added.]

The effect of this legislation was to prohibit any "governmental unit" from imposing any kind of parking fee or fine on a vehicle displaying a disabled parking permit.

During the 1997 session of the legislature, you authored House Bill 3025, which, as introduced, merely deleted the phrase "or in a space" from subsection (b) of section 681.006. In the House Intergovernmental Relations Committee, the bill was amended to add subsection (e), which provides:

(e) Nothing in this code shall be interpreted as exempting any owner or operator of a vehicle from payment of fees or penalties imposed by a governmental unit for parking at a meter, in a parking garage or lot, or in a space located within the boundaries of a municipal airport.

House Bill 3025, with this amendment included, passed both houses and was signed by the governor on June 17, 1997. The question before us is the meaning of newly enacted subsection (e).

On its face, subsection (e) might seem to remove the "free parking" exemption for vehicles displaying a disabled parking permit within the boundaries of any "governmental unit" in each of the following situations: 1) at a meter; 2) in a parking garage or lot; or 3) in a space within the boundaries of a municipal airport. You contend, however, that the phrase "of a municipal airport" was intended to modify the whole of subsection (e), and that consequently, the "free parking" exemption remains in effect outside "the boundaries of a municipal airport."

The bill analyses for both the engrossed version of the bill and the Senate committee report state that the purpose of House Bill 3025 is to "outline provisions regarding parking fees imposed by a governmental authority." Senate Comm. on Intergovernmental Relations, Bill Analyses, H.B. 3025, 75th Leg. (1997) (emphasis added). Furthermore, the section-by-section analyses in both cases simply repeat the language of the bill itself. On the other hand, the background to each bill analysis speaks wholly in terms of the "reimposition of fees on certain disabled individuals who park at DFW International Airport." More significantly, the "explanation of amendments" portion of the bill analysis of the House committee report states:

Adds a new Section 2 and renumbers sections accordingly. SECTION 2. Amends Sec. 681.006, Transportation Code, by adding Subsection (e) which clarifies that this code does not exempt any owner or operator of a vehicle from payment of fees or penalties imposed by a governmental unit for parking at a meter, garage, lot or space within the boundaries of a municipal airport. [Emphasis added.]

In our opinion, this "explanation of amendments" provides convincing evidence that House Bill 3025 was intended to remove the parking fee exemption for disabled vehicles only at municipal airports. In addition, we believe it would have been unusual for the legislature, having enacted the parking fee exemption only in 1995, to have virtually repealed that exemption in its next session without having manifested a clear intent to do so. Thus, in our opinion, House Bill 3025 must be construed to remove the parking fee exemption for vehicles displaying disabled parking permits only "within the boundaries of a municipal airport."

SUMMARY

House Bill 3025, Act of May 21, 1997, 75th Legislature, chapter 804, at 2633, removes the exemption from parking fees or penalties of a vehicle displaying a disabled parking permit only "within the boundaries of a municipal airport."

DAN MORALES
Attorney General of Texas

JORGE VEGA
First Assistant Attorney General

SARAH J. SHIRLEY
Chair, Opinion Committee

Prepared by Rick Gilpin
Assistant Attorney General

Footnotes

1. We construed this version of subsection 681.006(b) in Attorney General Letter Opinion 96-055 (1996).

2. Another bill enacted by the 75th Legislature, House Bill 580, which deals more broadly with the matter of parking for disabled persons, contains language identical to that of House Bill 3025. See Act of May 28, 1997, 75th Leg., R.S., ch. 1353, § 5, 1997 Tex. Sess. Law Serv. 5101, 5102. Although the bill analyses contained in the Senate committee report and in the engrossed version are no more helpful than those attached to House Bill 3025, the "section-by-section" analysis of the House committee report supports the conclusion we reach here: SECTION 5. This section amends Chapter 681.006(c), Transportation Code, to remove the exemption . . . from payment of fees or penalties imposed by governmental units from parking in parking garages or other parking lots located within the boundaries of municipal airports.

3. Disabled veterans and recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor are not affected by House Bill 3025. They remain entitled to exemption from all parking fees "charged by a governmental authority other than a branch of the federal government." Transp. Code § 681.008.