Week 4 Recap: Resources and Actions

Written By Lane Boldman

“What do I do with these bills” you may ask?

We need you to find the issues you care about, and then call or email your lawmakers to tell them you want action! 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.

As we near the end of January, we also are closing the 18th day of the 60-Day General Assembly. First, we want to thank all of the many friends of KCC who turned up for our Legislative Summit this past Sunday. While we had hoped to have been able to have you all visit with us (and network with others), in person, the timing of the legislative calendar can always create a challenge with the weather. Regardless, we were impressed with how many of you were able to switch to virtual and visit with us at least on screen. And for those who were dealing with power outages, never fear- we did manage to record many (but unfortunately not all) of the sessions, and those recordings and materials are posted below at the end of this week’s blog.

House Budget is here, Natural Resource bills stacking up

This past week, the House released their Biennial Budget, which was a more conservative approach than the proposal from the Governor’s Office. House Republicans proposing significant spending cuts to state agencies to navigate a $156 million shortfall and lower state revenue. The proposed budget includes a 4% cut for most agencies in FY 2027 and a 3% cut in FY 2028. We do expect that these bills will continue to evolve during the session, so that is why we have listed all of the budget-related bills as “monitor.” One of the major budget “asks” we want you to make is to tell your lawmakers that you want to support more funding for the Kentucky Heritage Land Conservation Fund. (You will find support documents in our conference materials at the end of this page).

In the meantime, four weeks into the session, the House Natural Resources and Energy committee held their first meeting this past Thursday, but only addressed one bill to date, which was House Bill 398 (KCC Monitor). That bill swiftly passed out of committee and is moving to the Regular Orders of the Day in the House for action. The Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee is also moving rather conservatively, having only met once so far, moving two bills by Senator Elkins, Senate Bill 29 (Oppose) and Senate Bill 49 (Support) both dealing with solid waste. Since the Natural Resources and Energy Committees are where many of our priority bills come from, we expect the pace (and number of filed bills) to increase very soon.

Welcome New Members and Friends

Our Legislative Summit was very well attended and it was great to see new faces. If you are new to KCC, we can tell you that during the General Assembly, we review every bill that is filed and pull a weekly list for you of ones that we feel have significant environmental implications, along with a conservative list of bills that also may impact core rights in the areas of civics, voting, or the transparency of government. Our list is then reviewed by our staff and board to come up with our positions and descriptions. Many times you will see that a bill is being “monitored”- which may mean it has both good and bad parts, and we are working to make it stronger- OR we may be more neutral but want to make sure our members are aware regardless. And then other bills are ranked on a scale from strong support to strong oppose. Bills of high priority are where we focus our energy on direct lobbying with two lobbyists on the ground every session.

The rest of the year, we are working with many areas of state government and also are meeting with the public or allies to work on environmental policies and education.

A project that now has an answer, but not the right solution—(Clean Energy from KY)!

KCC works with many different local and national coalitions— and followers of KCC have heard that for several years, we have been working on advancing a project on behalf of the Sustainable Aluminum Network, where we are a partner organization. Way back in early 2024, it was announced that Kentucky would be the likely location for the first new primary aluminum smelter in the United States—and powered with clean energy! This was from a grant from the Biden Administration, awarded to Century Aluminum, and would demonstrate how the aluminum industry was moving to lower-carbon production methods—something Century had already launched at one of their plants in Iceland.

While we continued to work with allies and the Cabinet, and while it was clear that Century wanted to have their new operation in Kentucky, they also were struggling with the bottom-line price target for this energy-hungry investment, and had been debating their options in other states for well over a year. This week, it was announced that they would be partnering up with Emirates Global Aluminum to build the project in Oklahoma— which would provide Century with the one thing that Kentucky could not — a state that is dominated in its energy mix with renewables (40% wind).

The lesson here that we want to make sure lawmakers understand, (which is reinforced by the recently-released report from Current Energy), that the longer Kentucky attempts to hang on to fossil fuels, the more expenses will rise. You can read Kentucky’s Energy Transition report by Current Energy, which was commissioned by several of our allies including the Kentucky Resources Council, Kentucky Solar Energy Society, Mountain Association, Metropolitan Housing Coalition and Earthjustice. We hope you (and lawmakers!) will take the time to read this important report.

Conference Resources and more from the KCC Legislative Summit 2026:

Lane Boldman
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Week 3 Recap: General Assembly 2026