Following are summaries of other business-related issues that will be topics during the legislative session:
They ranged from placing caps on punitive damages and imposing harsher sanctions for "frivolous" lawsuits to limiting the manner in which businesses could be sued and how much juries could force them to pay in damages.
Texans for Lawsuit Reform, hoping for a repeat performance this year, donated $1.1 million to political candidates. Most of the candidates they supported won election.
This year, groups for lawsuit reform want to limit out-of-state lawsuits filed in Texas courts and make it harder for injured employees covered by workers' compensation to sue other parties that may have some responsibility for their injury. Certified public accountants will fight to make it harder for plaintiffs to sue them.
And "no fault" auto insurance may be proposed, which would restrict contested court proceedings over accident liability.
Gov. George W. Bush, who pushed tort reform last session, also supports many of the other changes that will be considered this year. He has said that he's especially concerned about thousands of asbestos lawsuits that have been filed in Texas, the vast majority by nonresidents.
In previous sessions, the Legislature passed laws to stop foreign nationals and U.S. citizens from out of state from filing personal-injury suits in Texas if they could be filed elsewhere.
A group of oil refiners, large manufacturers and other companies that pay big electric bills are advocating that state lawmakers eliminate laws that require businesses to buy electric power from their local electric utility.
Other power producers say they could sell electricity to those companies cheaper because in the 1970s and 1980s, the state's large utilities -- such as Central and South West Corp. and Texas Utilities -- invested in billion-dollar nuclear power plants that created a debt load that they are still paying off.
But if big industrial consumers leave utility companies, critics warn the customers who remain -- most likely the residential customers -- would be left shouldering the expenses of the nuclear plants.
Deregulation supporters say utility companies should have to cover the costs of building the plants without passing those costs on to consumers.
Possible issues in the utility deregulation debate include reliability of service, reasonable rates and universal service for consumers.
"There's going to be a lot of dialogue for a while," said state Rep. Judy Hawley, D-Portland. "I don't think we're going to have a major bill come out of this session, but I think eventually we will have it."
Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, has filed a bill establishing a 12-member board made up of lawmakers to consider deregulation.
Under the proposal, the Public Utility Commission, which regulates the electric industry in Texas, would set up a pilot program in which electricity sellers would compete to sell power to a state agency.
State Rep. Vilma Luna, D-Corpus Christi, said she wants to see more patient-staff ratio regulations.
"If we got nothing else, I would consider that a victory," she said. "I don't want to quote a number yet. But a lot of problems develop because there's not adequate staff to follow the doctor's orders.
"That's how you get a patient who is malnourished or develops bedsores," she said. "We're not asking for one-on-one care. We're asking for an adequate staff to follow doctor's orders. (Nurses) and aids are so overworked. They are doing what they can and trying to provide good care, but they are overloaded and underpaid."
Health insurance companies and other managed care firms face a fight in the Legislature, because both the state's plaintiffs lawyers and the Texas Medical Association support the changes.
"We are going to be opposing anything which would mandate costly kinds of coverages that would drive costs higher without a direct, clear benefit," said Dane Harris, president of the Texas Association of Business and Chambers of Commerce.
The Associated Press contributed to this repot.