The following bills of interest saw action last week in the House and Senate--

Senate

Kill Carbon Pollution Reduction Program: House Bill 2025 (Struzzi-R-Indiana) eliminating DEP’s authority to adopt a Carbon Pollution Reduction Program for power plants was reported out of the Senate Appropriations Committee and was passed by the Senate. Read More Here.  [Note: The companion bill-- Senate Bill 950 (Pittman-R-Indiana)-- was referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee.]

Kill Regs By Doing Nothing: Senate Bill 5 (DiSanto-R-Cumberland) authorizes the General Assembly to kill any final regulation by doing nothing was reported out of the Senate Appropriations Committee and is now on the Senate Calendar for action. Read More Here 

Shielding Violators From Enforcement: Senate Bill 253 (Phillips-Hill) would create yet more bureaucracy in each state agency called an Agency Regulatory Compliance Officer to arbitrarily establish policies for waiving fines or penalties for violators of regulations and law administered by the agency was reported out of the Senate Appropriations Committee and is now on the Senate Calendar for action. Read More Here.

Stream Cleaning: Senate Bill 679 (Yaw-R-Lycoming) directs the Environmental Quality Board to develop regulations that authorize counties to adopt a program for “stream cleaning” and maintenance and the removal of obstructions and flood-related hazards from our local waterways (sponsor summary) was removed from the Table and is now on the Senate Calendar for action.  Read More Here.

Open Space Maintenance: House Bill 908 (Rader-R-Monroe) authorizing local governments to use a portion of open space preservation funding for maintenance (House Summary) was reported out of the Senate Local Government Committee and is now on the Senate Calendar for action.

Water/Energy Assistance: Senate Bill 1307 (Killion-R-Delaware) would provide $25 million for water and wastewater assistance for individual and small business assistance 1307and $100 million for Low-Income Energy Assistance Program and $25 million to the Public Utility Commission for the Small Business Utility Assistance Program from federal CARES funds was reported out of the Senate Appropriations Committee and is now on the Senate Calendar for action.

9/14/2020