SierraScape Spring 2020
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BY MICHAEL BERG
Sierra Club Organizer

Due to the global COVID-19 crisis the legislature left early for spring break. As their last act, the House passed an emergency budget to fund governance during time of pandemic (House Bill 2014). Astoundingly, the Republican leadership of the Missouri House rejected every Democratic amendment to the bill to utilize reserves of federal funds to provide emergency medical equipment and citizen relief. In the largest proposal (House Amendment 8), Representative Jon Carpenter (D - Kansas City) pleaded to House members to utilize $87 million as he read a desperate plea from former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, presently trapped in Italy, to mobilize a World War II style response to the present crisis. Carpenter and Gingrich's pleas fell on deaf ears, as the House rejected the amendment, with all but two Republicans voting no and all Democrats voting yes. The following is a brief summary of issues we were dealing with and continue to monitor.

Floodplain Management: Due to climate change and constricted rivers, flooding is a bigger and bigger problem every year in our state. It does not make sense to make this problem worse – we should not give tax incentives for developments in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) designated floodplains. We support Senate Bill 570 and House Bill 1612, which would stop these incentives.

Protecting Our Parks: In the last several years there have been several legislative attempts to sell state parks. We successfully stopped them all. This year no bill has been filed, but an amendment was added to a bill on the House floor to sell the beautiful Eleven Point State Park. This amendment failed. We will continue to be vigilant.

Grain Belt Express: Missouri has the opportunity to bring clean, inexpensive wind energy from Kansas into Missouri as well as states farther east, through a proposed transmission line called the Grain Belt Express. Even though the line was approved by the Public Service Commission after a five - year process, certain legislators are trying to deny the line's right to use eminent domain, the way other utilities do when they provide electricity to the public. We oppose Senate Bills 597 & 604 and House Bill 2033.