Moving Forward Together
It is hard to believe that 2021 is already over…this has been a year of collaborative successes for KCC which we would like to share with you— the supporters who make it possible.
While the legislative session always keeps us busy, it seems that this year was particularly active outside of the legislative session. Like many of you, we at KCC have largely been working virtually—minimizing our in-person contacts through most of the year. And yet, paradoxically, we have been busier than ever, in a virtual world where ‘collaboration’ has been the operating word. While the legislative session is always a particularly active time for us, it is the time outside of the legislative session where we build on our knowledge base and relationships on core conservation issues that can become the groundwork for future legislation and advocacy. Here are just a few of the activities that made 2021 a particularly rewarding year for us.
This year, KCC and our allies with the US Climate Action Network (USCAN) presented to the World Affairs Council during their Climate Week in April. KCC has been a part of USCAN for several years now, currently participating in their 100% Renewable Energy Action Team and Fossil Fuel Infrastructure team. KCC has also been serving on the Duke Accountability Coalition, which is a collaborative of organizations within the Duke Energy territories, focusing on climate justice. KCC has updated our Climate Action Guide for 2021, which you can find here. We can provide copies of this guide on request.
In addition to our climate advocacy work, KCC has spent a large part of the year engaging with solar companies and agricultural interests in communities throughout the Commonwealth, as solar adoption raises new questions over land use in Kentucky. We spent a large part of the year engaging with citizens all around the state—in Clark, Hardin, Martin, Mason, Franklin and Henry Counties, just to name a few. We have distributed hundreds of copies of KCC’s Citizens Resource Guide on Merchant Solar to help answer constituent’s common questions, as well as meeting with organizations ranging from the Berry Center for Sustainable Agriculture to the Center for Energy Education to ensure that when legislation is being considered, that we have done our homework to understand each interest group’s core concerns. Early in this coming legislative session we are expecting legislation to help address some of the concerns that have been raised, and will be asking for your help to advocate when that legislation is being debated in the House and Senate this session.
We have continued our work on distributed clean energy and efficiency as well, participating in our Solar Advocacy Network and several other collaboratives focused on sustainability and promoting rooftop solar.
This year we have also been spending time collaborating with many of our wildland and farmland allies on building new shared strategies over the need for increased land conservation funding (you will be seeing some of that work during the upcoming legislative session). We are particularly excited to be a part of a project spearheaded by the American Farmland Trust and staff with University of Kentucky’s College of Agriculture, which will be conducting community research on smart solar siting on farmland, with engagements in Paducah, Hopkinsville, Elizabethtown and Lexington during January, 2022.
This follows similar community outreach work that KCC had been a part of earlier this fall on the Martin County Solar Project, located on a former strip mine land. Our allies at Appalachian Citizens Law Center, LiKen Knowledge Exchange and Karen Ringall at the University of Kentucky, (along with KCC) conducted resident surveys to address environmental and economic development concerns with their local clean energy project.
We have been continuing to collaborate with our land allies, as well as transportation interests this year, on strategies to advance wildlife corridors and reduce wildlife/vehicle collisions. And as for other transportation issues, we are continuing to work with volunteer groups such as EVolve, to support their work on electric vehicle infrastructure and advocate for fair transportation fees for these vehicles.
These are just a few of the many projects that the Kentucky Conservation Committee has been engaged in during 2021, with the goal of advancing current and future legislation on these projects. And we could not do all of this without YOU. We would like to thank you all for your support, and I personally would like to thank the KCC Board of Directors, as well as the board of the Kentucky Conservation Foundation, which supports much of our educational work. Finally I would like to thank Randy Strobo of Strobo Barkley PLLC as well our 2021 intern Ryan Lloyd for their support work this year.
We are so looking forward to 2022 and wish you all the happiest and healthiest of New Years. We hope you will join us for this year’s KCC Legislative Summit on January 23rd.