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Committee adopts committee substitute for HB 20 to strengthen disaster-scam protections

5905002 · September 2, 2025
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

The Senate committee approved a committee substitute to House Bill 20, the Disaster Scam Response Act, creating enhanced criminal penalties and requiring local governments to designate nonprofit or bank recipients for donations during declared disasters.

Senator Perry told the committee that the substitute to House Bill 20, titled the Disaster Scam Response Act, would create new criminal offenses for the most serious disaster‑related scams, enhance penalties for volunteers who steal from disaster victims, and give certain victims the right to recover triple damages and attorney fees.

Why it matters: Committee sponsors said the bill responds to fraud…

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