by Roy C. Hengerson
The 2006 session of the Missouri General Assembly ended on May 12 with a flurry of bills being enacted in the last hour or so. For much of the session controversy reigned, between Democrats and Republicans and even between Republicans, who are the majority party in both state houses. The bitterest divisions did not center on the environment, however the controversies affected the pace of legislation and also the outcome in many cases.
Still, the environment did not fare too badly this year. Although we were able to pass only a small part of our legislative agenda, we were able to block almost all of the anti-environmental bills and any language having a deleterious impact on the environment.
They probably passed more bills in the House in the last hour of the session than in the entire last week. The fight over election administrative procedures took hours of debate the last day. Then with about an hour to go (the session must end at 6 p.m. on the second Friday of May) the Republican leadership in the House turned up the heat by ramming bill after bill that still had a chance of passage through, by using a parliamentary tactic called “moving the previous question,” which cut off debate and made it impossible to amend any of the bills under consideration.
I was sitting in the House gallery as the final minutes wound down. I realized that not one bill we had opposed had passed to that point. Then with about ten minutes left, they brought up HB1149 from the House bills with Senate amendments calendar. Most of HB1149 is a perfectly fine bill dealing with water bonds and fees for the water pollution program and the drinking water program and other Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) matters. However, the Senate had added one sentence to the definition of “point source,” which we strongly opposed because it weakened MDNR’s regulatory authority. That sentence read: Point source does not include agricultural storm water discharges and return flows from irrigated agriculture. It meant that big agribusinesses would be exempt from having to apply for a discharge permit, even though they are clearly point sources under the Clean Water Act.
We worked to remove that sentence. Representatives Belinda Harris and Wes Shoemyer tried to get an amendment to the bill on the House floor in those last few minutes. However, they were not able to do so because the Speaker recognized the Majority Floor Leader for a “previous question motion” which ended all debate and any chance for an amendment. HB1149 passed easily. So, our perfect opposition record was marred by that one sentence. We will have to work with the Attorney General’s office and next year’s legislature to correct this problem.
On other anti-environmental bills and language we were more successful. It was a bit difficult to step into Carla Klein‘s shoes the final three weeks of the 2006 Session. However, she had laid the groundwork for a successful outcome through her work of building a coalition of groups who shared our environmental concerns and goals. The Sierra Club continues to be a significant force in the State Capitol—working to protect our natural resources and our health.
Environmental (self) audit privilege (or dirty secrets) is a bad bill that industrial interests have been pushing for years. It would let major polluters off the hook by allowing them to escape any penalties if they self-audit, and would further keep this information secret from the public even if the pollution or spill caused harm. This year’s version was HB1147 introduced by Representative Walter Bivins. It bogged down on the House perfection calendar and never made it over to the Senate. Although there were several attempts to add HB1147’s language to other bills, they all failed. When they tried to amend this language to SB925 in the House Energy & Environment Committee Representative Jeanette Mott Oxford led the effort to block this.
The Sierra Club supported two bills which set standards for renewable energy that power plants would have to meet: HB1384 introduced by Representative Jenee Lowe and SB843 introduced by Senator Chuck Graham. Both bills went nowhere. However, another bill that would have set optional targets for renewable energy (SB915) made more progress. We did not support or oppose SB915 but worked with the sponsor, Senator Chris Koster, to improve the bill’s language. Some bad language related to animal wastes from confined animal feeding operations was added to the bill; however SB915 died in conference committee on the last day of the Session.
HJR43 was a joint resolution we opposed that failed to pass the Senate after passing in the House. It would have required a two thirds vote on any ballot initiatives related to hunting, fishing, wildlife, and forest management. This anti-democratic measure had been proposed in previous years. The Senate Agriculture & Conservation Committee had a hearing and voted it as do pass. However the Chairman of the Committee (Senator Dan Clemens) never reported HJR43 to the Senate as promised and it died quietly.
Senator Chuck Graham sponsored a concurrent resolution (SCR29) that would have expressed the Missouri State Legislature’s opposition to the proposal to sell off some national forest lands, including Missouri lands in the Mark Twain National Forest. We supported this resolution which passed the Senate but did not quite make it through the House. However, the House did pass a similarly worded House resolution introduced by Representative Dennis Wood (HR2439).
We followed the debate on tax increment financing (TIF) reform but only supported one of the many TIF reform bills in 2006 (HB1070 sponsored by Representative Robert Johnson). The TIF reform bill that progressed the furthest was SB832 sponsored by Senator John Griesheimer. This bill had some favorable language and some less than favorable language, but it died in conference on the last day.
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