Bill Tracking Worksheet Recap

GREEN BUILDINGS BILL PASSES!

June 2008

            HR3394 Cargill/Adelson, the High Performance Green Buildings Act, ran the gauntlet and survived. Most bills of such a sweeping nature seldom pass on the first try and many must be worked for years before passage, if at all.  Often they barely resemble the original bill.  The new law will require state funded buildings must meet the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Standards or its equivalent Green Globes Standard for energy efficiency and environmentally and sustainably produced materials. This was a joint effort with the Oklahoma Sustainability Network Unfortunately Rep. Cargill did not include public schools, which is by far the biggest part of state funded building. Two other bills, which we preferred, that did include schools were not heard in committee.  We will try to get them included next year.

            Also on the positive side, several bad bills effecting CAFO regulations were killed in committee or by the Senate leadership.  One particularly bad bill, HB2774 by DeWitt, Chair of the House Agriculture Committee, would have transferred water permitting from the Water Resources Board to the Dept. of Agriculture opening a loop-hole that would have eliminated the 3 mile set back from hog factory farms near public or private parks and recreation sites and church camps.

 Other bad bills killed were SB1893, which would prohibit counties from adopting more stringent standards for solid waste disposal sites.  HB2717 doubles income tax credits for purchase and transportation of poultry litter, a cost that should be borne by the polluter not the taxpayers.  HB3242 would have redirected the Rural Economic Action Plan Water Projects Fund to OWRB for implementing the comprehensive water plan.  This amounts to a blank check for a plan that doesn’t yet exist. 

We had high hopes for passing important energy efficiency bills for state vehicle fleets, tax credit for alternative fuel vehicles and promoting the conversion to compressed natural gas for state vehicles.  An amendment by Rep. Wallace Collins removing the rail transportation division from the Department of Transportation into a separate agency also failed final passage in the legislatures rush to end the session a full week early.

The Chapter is sad to report that Billie Brown, our lobbyist and staff person for that past five years, has resigned to take a position with the Oklahoma Education Association.  We will miss her and wish her well. We were fortunate and grateful to have the services of Ron Suttles who did a superb job of representing the Club at the Capital in the final four weeks of the session.

Charles Wesner, Chair