Climate and energy

The notes are pretty much that there are no notes. The conference committee met for 30 minutes or so at 7:30 a.m., staff explained the differences between the two versions of the bill, and then the committee decided to cancel the afternoon meeting at 1:30 p.m. and come back at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow morning.

A roomful of people who had gotten up an hour or so earlier than usual then went – oof. (Then I think a bunch of them went, “Well, how about breakfast?”)

Re the committee, something similar happened with the coal bills last year, too. By meeting two, a decision had somehow been made about which version of bill to work from (House or Senate), and a few of the non-controversial changes then sailed through.

A fair amount of chatter is taking place around one major difference between the House and Senate versions – the amendment that says that new coal-fired KS power plants must use 5% of KS coal in their mix. Rep. Grant attempted to amend it in in the House debate, but it went down 63 against, 51 for. The amendment then appeared again in the Senate and passed easily.

Some of the comments overheard: There were no hearings in either House or Senate on this provision – no idea how much KS coal is currently burned in KS plants, no idea of how much coal it would take to meet 5% of fuel requirements for Sunflower Electric’s proposed 1,400 MW plant – and then the coal in SE KS would have to be strip-mined, too, which is of great environmental concern.

I recall a cautionary voice on the House floor, someone who said that while it sounded interesting, something that big needed to go through the committee process to make sure it would be a benefit to SE KS, not a burden. I also recall a senator in the Senate debate who suggested that this provision might be expanded to cover all KS coal-burning power plants in the state, not just new ones.

Someone else said today – “Wait. We went from proposing a coal plant, to strip mining in our own state? How did that happen?”

Another major difference between the House and Senate versions of HB 2014 (which I haven’t heard anyone mention recently, although it was a live topic for a while) – the House passed an amendment that prohibited homeowners associations from prohibiting solar panels. (I actually don’t seem to have the exact language – sorry.) A similar provision was on one of the original net metering bills in the House Energy Committee, and received a LOT of negative attention, because it goes against county home rule.

Another quotable of the morning – but to understand it, you have to know that the official title of HB 2014 is now “Senate Substitute for House Substitute for HB 2014, as amended by the Senate” (because it got gutted and go-ed twice now): “Sometimes I just want to stand in the middle of the dome and holler – ‘substitute this!!!’” These words were uttered by the person whom I would have nominated least likely to ever think, let alone say or do this.

A big shout out to the revisers and staff for the Senate and House Energy and Utilities Committees – they have done an unbelievable job tracking these two bills, and keeping an eye on the details. Amazing work!

— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org