General Assembly 2022 Adjourns
KCC Final List of House Bills we were watching through 4/14
KCC Final List of Senate Bills we were watching through 4/14
The last week of the General Assembly can always be quite hectic, but when lawmakers began their final two days this past Wednesday, it was refreshing to start with a public event at the Capitol that would resonate for Ky. Conservation Committee members who are following our progress to a cleaner energy future.
Governor Andy Beshear, and the leadership of both chambers, started the day with a media event, announcing a $2 Billion investment by Envision AESC to produce electric vehicle batteries, powering 300,000 electric vehicles and creating an estimated 2000 jobs.
Envision AESC has committed to achieve net zero carbon emissions in all global operations by 2022 and carbon neutrality across the whole value supply chain by 2028. The Kentucky factory will be powered by 100% renewable energy, supplied by both onsite generation and locally from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), ensuring the plant helps drive progress toward decarbonizing the state’s industrial sector. Full release here.
Bills Passed During the Final Week
HB222 (Kulkarni) Anti-SLAPP legislation, (KCC Strong Support) We were pleased to see this good bill make it to the finish line this week and appreciate the bipartisan effort from Rep. Kulkarni as one of the few minority party sponsored bills to make it to the Governor’s desk. The law creates new sections of KRS Chapter 454 to provide definitions and establish procedures for dismissing legal actions filed in response to a party's exercise of free speech, right to petition, or right to association and allows for costs to be awarded to responding party if the motion was found to be frivolous or filed with the intent to delay. Sent to the Governor on 4/14. Please contact the Governor and ask him to sign this bill.
HB594 (Pratt) Administrative Regulations (KCC Oppose) This bill required unneeded additional regulatory review when passing regulations. Requires the Legislative Research Commission to research the economic costs on affected regulated entities. An amendment to include an analysis of the benefits of the regulation was rejected. The bill had been vetoed by the Governor, who stated that: “the General Assembly is the only body that benefits from HB594. It demands more of an administrative regulation than it did for the law enabling the regulation, while preserving the right to critique the costs incurred by regulated entities and disregard benefits to the Commonwealth.” (full veto message here). The veto was overridden and delivered to the Secretary of State on 4/14.
HB659 Historic Preservation Tax Credit (Rudy) (KCC Support) now changed to help electric vehicles. This bill, changed to “an act relating to revenue measures” was passed with a Senate committee substitute that removed the historic preservation provisions, but instead extended the timeline dates of several provisions enacted in the revenue bill HB8, including extending the timeline for enacting electric vehicle charging fees. KCC had been working closely with electric vehicle advocates during this session to help make sure that any fees and infrastructure include systems that are fair, equitable and reasonable. The time extension will hopefully help to ensure that as the state develops its full plan for incorporating electric vehicle charging into its infrastructure, there is necessary time to fully understand the technology and its implications.
SB216 (Mills) (KCC Oppose) was an election bill that was sent to the Secretary of State on the last day of the session. Governor Beshear stated in his earlier veto message: “…Senate Bill 216…reduces transparency in our elections….(it) requires candidates for legislative office to file only annual campaign finance reports in years they are not running for re-election….without quarterly reports, candidates will be able to draft bills and serve on interim legislative committees, while receiving donations in secret.” Despite his veto, it was overridden and becomes law. Governor’s full veto message here.
Bills, Resolutions Stalled Out: Merchant Solar, Flood Programs, EV Infrastructure
Changes to pollution standards stopped- thanks to YOU. As we mentioned in our last several newsletters, a bill we initially supported, HB597 (Gooch) a water resources bill was changed in ways that would adversely impact agricultural communities. See Herald-Leader news story on this bill. This had been a good bill that would have aligned state floodplain statutes with federal regulations and programs associated with FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program. It was changed last-minute with a Senate Committee Substitute that would have adversely impacted pollution standards. We were prepared to call for a veto of the bill had it passed. However due to your calls, the bill was passed over and retained in the Orders of the Day. While we would have preferred to have seen the original bill pass to address floodplain statutes, there will be time to address that work hopefully in the next session without this additional baggage.
Merchant Solar Legislation Stalls. One of the big disappointments for us this session was the interplay of competing bills to enact sensible regulations on larger-scale “merchant” electric generating facilities. These bills were targeting the recent influx of large-scale solar farms into the state. KCC and allies worked in attempting to pass SB69 (Hornback), a coalition bill which would have brought more certainty to requirements for setbacks, bonding, and reclamation of these large projects where no current local regulations exist. Similarly, a competing bill, HB392 (Branscum) addressed similar issues, however we felt the language in the Hornback bill was more protective of landowner rights. Despite many man-hours from constituent groups and the fact that SB69 was drafted by the head of the Senate Agriculture Committee (who took special care to address concerns of farmers), and was supported by both solar advocates and farmland conservation advocates such as the American Farmland Trust, other interest groups such as the Kentucky Farm Bureau got behind the Branscum bill instead. In an attempt to consolidate, HB392 was amended by the Senate to integrate language from SB69 and easily could have moved to final passage in the remaining two days this past week. However HB392 stalled out in the House Rules committee, never making its way to concurrence for final passage. KCC will continue to stay heavily engaged in this issue, working with land and solar interest groups and local communities. If you are in a community where these projects are taking place, we would love to hear from you. We encourage you to check out our online resources on solar and land use.
Electric Vehicle Infrastructure development plan. SB347 (Higdon) (KCC Support) This bill did not make it to final passage, and had several additional pieces of transportation-related legislation added at the end. Despite the fact that it was passed in the House as amended and was received in the Senate for final passage on the last day, it was not sent to the Governor’s desk. However we presume there will be ongoing work over the interim session.
SCR171 (KCC Oppose) Nuclear. This resolution would have requested the Legislative Research Commission to examine funding sources and identify groups to conduct a feasibility study of advanced nuclear power in the Commonwealth. The resolution only passed in the Senate.
Public Service Commission: Finally, the legislature refused to move SR134, a resolution confirming the appointment of Amy Cubbage to the Public Service Commission. This now removes her from the role she had already been performing for several months. Adding this to the earlier defeat of SR135 which would have confirmed the appointment of Commissioner Marianne Butler., this now leaves the agency with only a single commissioner in the three-person commission, leaving them without an operational quorum. You will recall in our February 25th blog we highlighted how the Senate denied Ms. Butler’s appointment “without question” citing anonymous and unfounded “complaints” as the reason for denying the appointment.
Continuing the Discussion on Utility Rates
This session we saw several bills and resolutions on the topic of utility rate volatility, primarily stemming from eastern Kentucky districts dealing with Kentucky Power, its recent rate spike, and its pending sale to Liberty Utilities. The increase in rates related to the fuel adjustment clause. (See this investigative story from January on Kentucky Power’s fuel charges). In a statement by the Mountain Caucus weeks ago, lawmakers raised concerns about the sale to Liberty.
Despite the Governor’s veto being sustained on HCR138 which would examine and evaluate the feasibility of implementing an alternative rate structure mechanism (ARM) for regulated utilities, it was clear this debate is only just beginning. During the last day of the session, in his comments on the resolution, Senator Stivers stated that the reason for his not overriding the veto is that there would be a committee regardless during the interim to look into these issues. The Governor’s veto stated that ARMs allow for less oversight of the public utilities. (Full veto message here). Aspects of the utility rate issue were also reflected in the earlier adopted resolution SR316 (Wheeler) and other legislation not passed, including SB329, SJR170, HB755, and HB778.
Budget Funding for Land Conservation and the PSC- The Work Continues
During this session, KCC had two primary targets for the state budget— to hopefully find new funding sources for land conservation work to offset the decline in existing revenue sources, and to help support full funding for the Public Service Commission from the Governor’s budget request that would allow this agency to retain the staff needed to address the huge increased workload of the agency.
While the budget did at least contain significant funds for the upkeep of our state parks, and we were able to improve the funding for both land conservation and the Public Service Commission in the final version of the budget (compared to what was proposed in the House), the funding for these two areas still fall short of what is truly needed and we will continue to work on this for the next biennium budget cycle.
Honoring our friends and colleagues
During the session there were several heartfelt resolutions directed toward lawmakers who will be retiring from the legislature. Those included resolutions for Senator C.B. Embry Jr., Senator Paul Hornback, Senator Wil Schroder, Senator Alice Forgy Kerr, Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, Rep. Joni Jenkins, Rep. Susan Westrom, and Rep. Kelly Flood. We thank these lawmakers for their service and encourage you to read their full resolutions.
In addition, we want to bring your attention to Senate Resolution 294 (Harper Angel) passed on the final day of the session honoring our friend Tom FitzGerald for his years of service to the Kentucky Resources Council. “The Senate honors Tom FitzGerald for his years of dedicated work protecting the environment and citizens of Kentucky from unfair practices of utility companies” and his 40-plus years of service for protecting the environment. It is a well-deserved honor.
The General Assembly adjourned Sine Die till Jan 3, 2023 unless called into extraordinary session by the Governor.