Nuclear bill finds a new home
The silly season is officially in full stride. With a flurry of voting and re-voting, Senator Bob Leeper’s SB 26 (which allows nuclear power plants and other processing facilities to operate without a plan for disposal of the waste) was successfully tacked onto Rep. Rocky Adkins HB 213 which gives condemnation powers to CO2 pipelines. It’s unclear what the fate of this will be when it returns to the House for a concurrence vote on this amendment. This is just one of what will be a flurry of last-minute attempts to get bills passed that have stalled in the other House. KCC will continue to monitor this activity until the last day of the concurrence session next Tuesday. It would behoove those who oppose the promotion of nuclear power without a solution to the problem of long-term storage of waste to contact their Representative and express their concerns with this amendment.
A second issue we are monitoring closely is the so called “bill board bill” (allowing the cutting of obstructing trees on the public right-of-way) which was unsuccessful in the Senate and withdrawn a week ago. When a bill is withdrawn it becomes a prime candidate to show up as an amendment on another piece of legislation. Just which bill is the question. So far it hasn’t appeared, but we will continue to closely watch.
As to HB 419, there is word of an amendment that KCC can live with being added on the floor today or tomorrow. This would send it back to the House for concurrence either Monday or Tuesday. That still gives it a chance.