Upcoming Activities and New Bills
Bills You Can Take Action On Now:
KCC List of House Bills to date can be found here
KCC List of Senate Bills to date can be found here
To act on bills: You may call the Legislative Message Line during business hours (1-800-372-7181) or email your lawmakers anytime.
Upcoming Events at the Capitol
Join us on Feb. 15th & 16th to Support Electric Vehicles!
KCC is working with our partners at the Evolve Electric Vehicle Group to host a couple legislative drive days. We’ll have a selection of vehicles on site at the Capitol so that lawmakers may stop by and do a test drive to learn more about how these vehicles work and learn about their charging infrastructure. We’ll be hosting EV Drive Days on Wednesday the 15th and Thursday the 16th from 8AM-1PM at the top of the Capitol garage.
Volunteers Needed: If you live in the Frankfort area, we can use volunteers to help us escort lawmakers to the vehicle staging area on Feb. 15th and 16th, so if you can help, contact director@kyconservation.org or call us at 502-209-9659.
Also …join us on Feb. 15th in support of Wildlife Corridors: We are also planning a short ceremony at the Capitol Rotunda from 11:30AM-12:30PM on Feb. 15th to acknowledge the state’s critical wildlife corridors that promote biodiversity of our lands and animals. Please join us at the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday, Feb. 15th and show your support for wildlife corridors! Contact director@kyconservation.org or call us at 502-209-9659.
Election Policy Trends This Past Week:
Earlier this week, on Feb. 9th, the House Elections & Constitutional Amendments & Intergovernmental Affairs committee received an update from the National Council of State Legislatures on state election policy trends, including information on voter list maintenance, voter registration, vote auditing, trends for addressing voting for felons, and a discussion of the use of private or charitable funds in elections. You may see the video of the full meeting here, and presentation slides from NCSL here.
Land Conservation Updates This Past Week:
This week, representatives from The Nature Conservancy and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation presented to the Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee during their February 8th meeting to give an update on the conservation easement for the Cumberland Forest Project, which is a conservation easement for the benefit of the Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources on approximately 54,000 acres of real property located in Knox, Bell and Leslie Counties— one of the largest conservation projects in Kentucky and one of the largest land deals in The Nature Conservancy’s history, which also ties to conservation lands in adjoining states. The project is still working through issues with titles and surveys, but lawmakers in the Senate Natural Resources Committee have been very supportive of the project. You may find the slide deck for their presentation here.
New Bill Highlights for This Week:
House Bill 4 (J. Branscum) KCC Support
KCC members may recall last year’s competing bills to address requirements for large-scale “merchant” solar installations. This year, Rep. Branscum’s bill has returned as an improved version. The bill memorializes many requirements already implemented by the Public Service Commission for merchant facilities (solar facilities in particular) regarding bonding and decommissioning, and prioritizes local control. Read our full description of this bill’s components on KCC’s House Bill list.
Senate Bill 4 (R. Mills) KCC Strong Oppose
Last week, we mentioned a joint meeting of the House and Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committees to discuss the chain of events that led to rolling power blackouts in late December 2022. While many lawmakers, particularly those in coal counties, blamed what they considered to be a premature decommissioning of coal-fired power plants and transition to renewables for the disruption, the utilities stated that the problem was largely due to a key gas valve that froze at a critical time during the weather event and that renewables were not a factor in the disruption. Not only were renewables not a factor, but it was due to the importation of wind power through the MISO transmission market that helped to reduce the power disruption when the valve froze.
Senate Bill 4 has now been assigned to the Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee. Please contact members of the Senate Natural Resources Committee on the legislative message line (1-800-372-7181) or email the committee to oppose this bill.
You may find a full video of the meeting on KET here.
House Bill 169 Off Highway Vehicles (P.Flannery) Strong Oppose. Defines "off-highway vehicle" and requires certain safety features. Allows the operation of off-highway vehicles on certain roadways in the Commonwealth. Allows the Transportation Cabinet or a local government to prohibit the operation of OHVs on any roadway under its jurisdiction. Establishes a penalty for operating an OHV outside of the set guidelines. While this bill does address safety in some parts, we oppose based on the safety consideration of expansion of operation of OHVs on local roads. Contact your Representative to oppose. Legislative message line: (1-800-372-7181).
House Bill 197 PFAS Chemicals (N. Kulkarni) Strong Support. Requires the Energy and Environment Cabinet to promulgate regulations establishing maximum PFAS limits and monitoring requirements for drinking water provided by public and semi-public water systems, and maximum PFAS limits and monitoring requirements for discharges into the waters of the Commonwealth. The maximum PFAS limits must be designed to protect public health and be updated. (Note: a recent report from the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet detected PFAS chemicals in 36 of 40 samples. Contact your Representative and ask them to co-sponsor. Legislative message line: (1-800-372-7181).
House Bill 236 Attack on Socially Responsible Investments (S. Sharp) Strong Oppose. Requires that fiduciaries shall consider the sole interest of the members and beneficiaries of the retirement systems using only "pecuniary factors." which are defined as "a consideration having a direct and material connection to the financial risk or financial return of an investment" and prohibit the consideration of or actions on "nonpecuniary interests" which include "environmental, social, political, and ideological interests." Contact your Representative to oppose. Legislative message line: (1-800-372-7181). You may find Treasurer Allison Ball’s current list of “restricted financial institutions” (those she determined were engaged in energy boycotts) here.
Continue to oppose:
House Bill 50 and Senate Bill 50- KCC Strong Oppose. This pair of bills requires the office of county commissioner, city mayors and legislative body members, all city offices, and soil and water conservation officers to have a partisan primary or partisan election, and requires school board candidates to have emblems of political party affiliation presented on the ballot. Please contact House and Senate leadership (1-800-372-7181) to oppose these bills.
Continue to Support:
House Bill 66 (Willner) KCC Strong Support. Makes it more difficult for utilities to disconnect service during extreme winter and summer temperatures. Contact your Representative and ask them to co-sponsor.