Love For Our Water and Air
How to Contact Your Legislators here
Legislative Message Line to comment on bills: 1-800-372-7181 or email here!
We hope you all have a great Valentine’s Day and then also have a chance over the weekend to get out in nature. This Valentine’s Friday marks day 12 of the 30-day General Assembly “short session.” Lawmakers will not be in session on President’s Day (Monday, Feb. 17th). When lawmakers return, the Senate will have one more day to file Senate bills (Feb. 18th) and the House will have two final days to file their last bills (Feb. 19th).
This means that we are starting to receive a fair amount of “placeholder” bills, where we do not know what the full content will be, and we will be watching them carefully for the inevitable bill substitutes that will be happening. We also had a batch of bills that dropped late on Friday that we are still assessing, so watch for an update email before the sessions resumes.
Bills on the Move:
Important Bills to Continue to OPPOSE!
While lawmakers were treated to a hosted breakfast by the energy companies this week, many clean water allies testified during the hearing on the bill (only to be cut short in their testimony) while KCC lobbyists worked with individual lawmakers in advance to help them understand the implications of Senate Bill 89.
Senate Bill 89- (STRONG OPPOSE) Direct your calls and emails now to the HOUSE:
First, we want to thank all our allies and supporters for the tremendously fast work that happened this week to bring attention to Senate Bill 89 (S. Madon) (Strong Oppose) that limits the definition of “water” in ways that weaken protections to ephemeral streams, wetlands and groundwater. The bill was driven by the interests of the coal industry. The majority of Kentucky’s 90,000 miles of streams and rivers already are considered impaired for the purposes of swimming and fish consumption because of pollution.
The bill passed out of the Senate subcommittee on Wednesday this week, and also passed the Senate on Friday. The bill will now go to the House Committee on Committees where it is expected that it will likely move to the House Natural Resources committee for consideration.
Start Contacting House members:
First, ask House Leadership to “hold Senate Bill 89”
Then, contact your own representative and make a personal ask for a commitment to oppose this bill.
And then when lawmakers are back from the holiday, the bill will likely be assigned to the House Natural Resources & Energy committee, where you can direct calls and emails. Watch KCC’s Facebook for updates.
House Bill 137: “An Act Relating to Air Quality Monitoring” (STRONG OPPOSE).
Direct your calls and emails NOW to the “full HOUSE”:
This bill passed out of the House Natural Resources & Energy committee and has had a second reading in the House. Again, thank you for your calls on this bill. The bill prevents the use of citizen-based data and evidence in bringing complaints and enforcing laws related to air quality. The bill undermines the Air Pollution Control District (APCD) and Division of Air Quality's (DAQ's) ability to maintain its delegated authority over the Clean Air Act in Kentucky, which allows for the use of "any credible evidence" in assessing compliance, violations, and penalties. Citizen scientists and data collection are imperative to holding polluters accountable for violating clean air laws. This bill will not only make it much more difficult to bring violators into compliance, but it will also threaten Kentucky’s delegated authority to implement the Clean Air Act, and would instead require the federal government to do so. More on this bill here.
Thanks to all who came out for the Kentuckians for Energy Democracy Coalition Lobby Day! It was great to see new faces working for energy democracy this week!
We had a great time helping the teams who came out for an Energy Lobby Day to build support for disconnection protections, hosted by Kentuckians for Energy Democracy (KCC is a partner group in this coalition). We had several teams meeting with their lawmakers to discuss House Bill 326 (Rep. Lisa Willner), a KCC “Strong Support” bill. More on the bill here.
Some New Bills to Love!
Senate Bill 137 (C. Armstrong) Strong Support! A Senate bill that supports some of the same goals as House Bill 326 (see above) to prevent a utility from disconnecting or suspending residential service to a customer's residence during extreme weather conditions, which includes any natural disaster resulting in the declaration of a state of emergency and during a National Weather Service issued Extreme Cold Warning or Excessive Heat Warning for the county in which the customer resides.
House Bill 470 (S. Stalker) Strong Support! Proposes to create a new section of the Constitution of Kentucky to establish a right of the people to have a healthy environment, including a right to clean air, pure water, and ecologically healthy habitats; declare that the Commonwealth's natural resources, among them its air, water, flora, fauna, climate, and public lands, are the common property of all people, including generations yet to come; establish that as trustee of the environment and its natural resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all people.
More new bills can be found on our website. And watch for an update on bills that that dropped late on Friday. We will be sending out an update with an expanded list of those House and Senate bills shortly.
Don’t Let a Holiday Stop You….Time is short!
Fill Up Email boxes on holidays and weekends!
LRC Message Line: 1-800-372-7181. You can also email. Here’s a link to all of your lawmaker’s email boxes! Note that LRC email addresses changed this past year so check and make sure you are using the most current one!