The Senate and House committee schedules and floor calenders are listed here--

Session Schedule

The House removed November 13, 24 and 25 from their lame-duck voting schedule. The Senate isn't coming back until November 20-21, except to do tributes to retiring members and possibly vote on nominations). Here's the revised schedule--

House

November 12,13 (Removed), 17, 18, 19, 24 (Removed), and 25 (Removed)

Senate

November 20-21 (tribute to retiring members, certain nominations, no legislative votes)

You can watch the Senate Floor Session and House Floor Session live online.

Calendars/Committees

The Senate and House committee schedules and floor calendars are summarized here on environmental issues--

Calendars

The following bills of interest are on the House and Senator voting Calendars--

Senate: All bills remaining on the Calendar were Tabled.

House (October 6): House Resolution 883(Harper-R-Montgomery) directing the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee to review where grants were made under the Growing Greener II program;

Special Session (October 6): Special Session House Bill 13(Bennington-D-Allegheny) further providing for alternative energy portfolio standards; Special Session House Bill 17 (McIlvaine-Smith-D-Montgomery) providing a sales tax exclusion for hybrid vehicles; Special Session House Resolution 6(Thomas-D-Delaware) recognizing November 11-17 as "National Geography Awareness Week."

Committees

No committee meetings are scheduled next week to consider environmental legislation.

Bills Introduced

The following bills of interest were introduced this week, but will die at the end of the year--

Natural Gas Buses: House Bill 2817 (Marshall-R-Beaver) requiring the replacement of retired mass transit buses with those powered by natural gas.

Farmland Preservation/Natural Gas Rights: House Bill 2819 (Godshall-R-Montgomery) allowing the split off or transfer of lands with natural gas reserves from farmland in the "Clean and Green" farmland preservation program.

Bio-Fuel Vehicles: House Resolution 923 (Marshall-R-Beaver) urging American automobile manufacturers to provide a wider variety of vehicles power by diesel, bi-fuel and flex fuels for sale.

Food-to-Fuel: Senate Resolution 413 (Orie-R-Allegheny) urging Congress to amend existing food-to-fuel mandates to remedy policies aimed at the production of advanced biofuels.

10/10/2008