KCC Week 9 Recap- General Assembly 2026
Read our full lists and make your calls—Particularly on our “Strong Support” and “Strong Oppose” bills!
Please call the legislative message line at 1-800-372-7181 (Monday-Friday 7AM-6PM) to express your views on these bills. You may also email your legislators if the phone lines are closed.
All Bills Filed per Deadline —
Time to Watch for Amendments
We have now completed day 41 of the 60-day “long” session. This week, both the Senate and House passed their deadlines for filing new bills as well. But this does not mean that the legislative agenda is set— KCC reviews existing bills on a continual basis for amendments and other changes. And this is the time to pay particular attention. Often what happens during this period is that lawmakers may look for ways to take elements of “slow moving” bills and attach them them to faster-moving bills as a way to expedite their initiatives. This is where we are also keeping a sharp eye on “placeholder” bills —these are bills that were filed with minimal changes to a statute, in order to then swap them out at a later time with a full bill substitute. Right now KCC is tracking around 60 of these “shell” bills that involve environmental statutes.
One of the bills we are continuing to watch closely is Senate Bill 178 (KCC Strong Oppose). This is the bill that would put the risk of environmental harm on the public, rather than the entities creating that harm. Because of your calls and emails, this bill was been recommitted back to the Senate Natural Resources Committee. **However** this is the time in the legislative calendar where bills that are stalled can suddenly come back to life. Senate Bill 178 has already had two readings in the Senate— which means it still has plenty of time in the calendar to finish a vote in the Senate and make its way through the House. So keep up the good work, make those calls, and stand by for more civic action opportunities on this bill!
More News of the Week:
Thank YOU for Your Fast Actions
Top: Senator Smith addresses concerns heard from constituents on Senate Floor Amendment 1.
Bottom: Metropolitan Housing Coalition Director Tony Curtis testifies on Senate Bill 8 earlier in the week.
This is a time when fast action on bills matter— and YOU made a difference this week! On Monday March 2nd, while monitoring the General Assembly as we always do, we heard mention of a new filing, Senate Bill 8. This caught our attention that a bill with such an early number was being filed on the very last day for filing Senate bills and we expected the worst. Since lawmakers no longer have a “prefile” process where the public can see draft legislation, and since the last day of bill filings can lead to a very long night (since it takes a while for the Legislative Research Commission to upload all of the bills they get on a deadline day to their public website), we were watching well into the evening to assess that bill.
By 5AM on Tuesday, working overnight after seeing this bill for the first time, KCC had their analysis shared out with many of our allies and media on a bill that—as written— would have drastically curtailed the public’s ability to participate in proceedings at the Public Service Commission.
Since then, you received many communications from KCC, as well as allies such as the Kentucky Sierra Club, Ky. Resources Council, Kentuckians for Energy Democracy, Metropolitan Housing Coalition, Appalachian Citizens Law Center and other environmental nonprofits who have participated in stakeholder interventions before the PSC. You took action and delivered with your calls and emails to stop this bill. [Read the Ky. Lantern’s recap here]
(Note- KCC does not generally participate in legal interventions, which allows us more freedom to have candid and unobstructed dialogue with state agencies and lawmakers in certain situations where legal actions exist. Therefore we appreciate the work of our partner nonprofits who do legal interventions and were directly impacted by this bill).
And while we appreciate the additional steps that Senator Smith addressed through Senate Floor Amendment 1 to address the flaws in this bill in the Senate, we do still believe there is additional work to be done in the House before we are comfortable with this legislation. For now, we have changed our bill rating for this legislation from “Strong Oppose” to simply “Oppose.” We ask that you now continue to express your concerns on this bill in the House.
A Collaborative Approach
House Bill 677, sponsored by Rep. Jim Gooch, R-Providence, came from years of collaboration among environmental advocates and fossil fuel industry representatives on an oil and gas working group connected to the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet. The Kentucky Conservation Committee and Kentucky Resources Council were the two environmental organizations working with oil and gas interests and the Energy and Environment Cabinet to create the state’s first regulatory framework for carbon capture and storage. More from the Ky. Lantern here.
More Data Center Legislation
One of the hottest environmental topics this session has been a recognition that data center facilities need additional constraints, due to the response from communities that have been impacted by these operations.
We already reviewed two very good bills that were attempting to address some of the many concerns from the public, House Bill 593 (J. Bray) and House Bill 544 (A. Moore)— both “KCC Strong Support” bills.
This past week, there were several additional bills filed,from both parties. Those include House Bill 856 (S. Stalker), House Bill 937 (TJ Roberts), Senate Bill 319 (L. Tichenor), and Senate Bill 330 (K. Herron). We are supportive of every one of these bills to different degrees, as they all attempt to tackle different challenges raised by constituents with regard to data center development. We urge you to review our full analysis of each bill on our House Bill List and Senate Bill List this week.
New Bill Highlights — Land Conservation, Green Bonds, Epic Takeover
In addition to the new Data Center bills mentioned above, we also want to praise Rep. Joshua Watkins who filed a refreshingly good bill this past week:House Bill 843 (KCC Strong Support) which authorizes “green bonds” (fixed-income debt instruments specifically for climate or environmental projects) and other similar “green” initiatives as part of updates to Community Improvement Districts (CIDs).
We also want to thank Rep. Mark Hart for attempting to address predatory solar installers through House Bill 828 (KCC Support).
And most importantly- We need calls for funding for the Heritage Land Conservation Fund, through House Bill 723 (KCC Strong Support). Please call and thank Rep. Whitaker for filling House Bill 723 which provides an addtional funding mechanism for the Kentucky Heritage Land Conservation Fund. Annually transfers 80% of the sales and use taxes, interest, and penalties collected during the preceding fiscal year from sporting goods stores from the general fund to the Kentucky Heritage Land Conservation Fund. And then call House Appropriations & Revenue and ask them to support this bill.
On the negative side, we want to bring attention to this new bill, House Bill 785 (KCC Oppose) by Rep. JT Payne, which levies an excise tax on the owner of a solar farm in Kentucky at an annual rate of $200 per acre for land used to generate electricity. We are particularly troubled by the fact that the tax would go to the General Fund, rather than address actual funding for land conservation—which is typically the concern around solar farms. That bill has been assigned to House Appropriations & Revenue.
We also want to give a big “thumbs down” to Senate Bill 100 (KCC Oppose) which we have nicknamed the “EPIC Takeover Bill.” EPIC stands for the Energy Planning and Inventory Commission, established in 2024 through Senate Bill 349, and would grant the Executive Director of EPIC full authority to act on behalf of EPIC, with the board and executive committee now only serving in an advisory capacity, among its provisions. That bill is currently in House Natural Resources & Energy.
Check out our analysis of all bills new and old on KCC’s updated House and Senate bill lists. And please continue to make those calls on the issues that matter to YOU!
Don’t Forget- Upcoming Public Meetings on Nuclear Energy!
We want to thank the KCC members who attended the first public meeting in Morehead. The next meetings will be in Louisville on March 17, Lexington on March 25, Paducah on April 1, Northern KY on April 6, and Bowling Green on April 8. If you are planning on going to any of these public meetings, let us know! And then if you need talking points, contact us and you can also find materials on our our Nuclear Energy page on our website. We are also still running weekend field trips to see the Fernald Nature Preserve, formerly an infamous nuclear production site, and now a popular birding area in Cincinnati. If you would like to join us for a field trip, see this link.