Kansas Legislative News #1
February 12, 2007
Tom Thompson
5001 Rock Creek Lane, Mission, KS 66205
Phone: 913-236-9161; cell: 913-687-2405;
email: tomnthompson@sbcglobal.net

In December of 2006 I was asked by the Kansas Chapter of the Sierra Club to be their lobbyist for the 2007 legislative session. I accepted the challenge and began covering issues at the capitol during the second week in January when the session began. I look forward to representing environmental issues during the coming session.

This year's session has been loaded with energy legislation. There are a number of bills that have incentives for an energy issues that have come from interim meetings lead by Rep. Holmes on energy. Some of these incentives are help encourage wind energy or other renewable sources of energy others encourage efficiency. There are also incentives for practices the Sierra Club does not consider environmentally friendly like nuclear energy.

If you want to keep up with latest legislation, go to http://www.kslegislature.org/legsrv-bills/index.do. This web site can help you get a variety of information about what is going on in both the Kansas House and Senate. You can even listen to them when they are in session if you have the appropriate software and click on Listen in Live. Full text of bills can be downloaded too. Please remember that bills are amended and sometimes what is available to download is not the current version. There is also a place to find out what has happened to a bill. This bill history may be a day or two behind. Both of these require you to put in a bill number. Needless to say, this site provides a lot of information that can help you keeps track of what is going on.

I have already testified on 13 bills this session. There is more coming very soon. Below I report on the bells so far. They are in the order they were heard in committee.

HB 2037 (Supported) provides for income tax credit incentives to encourage non-owner operators of dwellings to make energy efficient installations. Since occupants typically pay utility bills there is not incentive for them to make such improvements. If landlords install additional insulation or high efficient furnaces they will qualify for $100 to 300 income tax credits. This bill passed the House Energy and Utilities Committee and the House. It is now in the Senate Utilities Committee.

HB 2033 (Opposed) changed one small word from "may" to "shall" making it so that costs of construction work in progress (cwip) will be paid for by electric rate payers. In other words, it allows electric utilities building power plants to have rate payers pay for constriction work in progress, without KCC first considering whether it should, instead of after construction is completed. This takes the risks involved during construction off stockholders and puts it on ratepayers allowing utilities to pay off projects earlier and in some cases pay a lower interest rate on bonds. This is an incentive to building coal-fired power plants. This bill went to a sub-committee to hammer out some difference however; the bottom line is that it passed the House Utilities Committee with some modification. It then passed the House and will go to the Senate.

HB 2038, (Opposed) again a House Energy and Utilities bill, got a lot of attention. It gave a property tax exemption for ten years to the owners of Wolf Creek Nuclear Power Plant if additional generation is built. I argued that this is a very expensive form of energy and that renewable energy; conservation and efficiency measures make more sense. Many on the committee seemed to view nuclear energy as the answer to global warming. 2038 passed in committee and in the House. It is now with the Senate Assessment and Taxation Committee.

HB 2052 (Opposed) was by Rep. Otto who likes to write bills that decrease the ability of Kansas Dept. of Wildlife and Parks to manage wildlife. This one attempted to remove the Dept. from being involved in the permitting process for small ponds being built in conservation districts. He also has a bill (HB 2311) that is coming up to do away with the Kansas Endangered Species Act. This bill had a hearing in Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee and is still there. Hopefully it will never come out.

SB 120 (Supported) tells the KCC to adopt thermal efficiency standards for new commercial and industrial buildings in Kansas. It also says that efficiency standards shall be disclosed residential structures are offered for sale, prior to closing and whenever a buyer asked. This bill remains in the Senate Utilities Committee.

HB 2127 (Supported) provided for irrigators and schools to benefit from receiving 150% of avoided costs from electric utilities unused generation if they set up small wind generation systems. We supported this but indicated that it was time for Kansas to adopt net metering that essentially allows electric meters to run forward and backwards. This bill passed the House Energy and Utilities Committee and the House. It still needs Senate consideration.

HB 2219 (Supported) Rep. Vaughn Flora deserves a lot of credit for asking the House Energy and Utilities to consider this Bill. This is the bill requiring a two-year moratorium on building coal fired power plants in Kansas. A special hearing was held in the Old Supreme Court Room in the Capitol. The proponents and opponents were each allowed one-hour to testify. Many great speakers testified on behalf of this bill including Sierra Club activists Craig Volland, Joe Spease and myself. Unfortunately, when this bill was later discussed in committee a motion was made by Rep. Annie Kuether to table it. That is where it is today. An attempt by Rep. Tom Hawk was made to amend the bill to have increased mercury testing in Kansas that failed. However, Rep. Hawk and Flora are working on another bill that does this.

SB 128 (Supported) This bill concerns itself with providing energy conservation information to consumers. It empowers the KCC to establish an energy conservation education advisory group to establish requirements, standards and guidelines for energy education and conservation promotion programs, though this bill was heard Jan. 24 it remains in the Senate Utilities Committee.

SB 123 (Supported) in the Senate Natural Resources Committee via Senate Ways and Means and HB 2184 (Supported) in the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee were essentially the same. Both provided for a Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) to be developed in the Upper Arkansas River Basin. The CREP goal is to voluntarily get landowners to take irrigation wells out of production hoping to improve the aquifer and flow of the Arkansas River and its tributaries. Though both committees have held hearings, neither has taken action.

HB 2147 (Supported) allows the Kansas Conservation Commission to facilitate perpetual conservation easements on working farms and ranches if eligible. Eligibility will be determined by priorities established by the Conservation Commission. This bill had a hearing but remains in committee to await final action.

HB 2222 (Supported) creates incentives for individuals to buy hybrid vehicles. This bill was requested by Rep. Anthony Brown and provides for up to a $2500 income tax credit for those buy hybrids. Ford and General Motors testified in support of the bill along with the Sierra Club. The bill was considered for action. Rep. Tom Sloan proposed an amendment that would have significantly changed the bill. After lengthy discussion there was a motion to table the bill that passed. Fortunately, there is another bill SB 140 that also provides incentives.

HB 2406 (Supported Conceptually) was another important bill before the House Utilities Committee. This bill provided tax incentives to Kansas utility companies if they built wind generation facilities and used certain siting guidelines. My testimony said the Sierra Club supported both concepts. However, the siting guidelines in the bill were too vague and did not necessarily appear to be scientifically based. It was recommended that a more deliberative body work on more specific details perhaps in an interim study. This bill could be acted upon in the near future. Another siting bill, HB 2492, will be heard. These two bills could be combined.

Sierra Club
c/o Tom Thompson
5001 Rock Creek Lane
Mission, KS 66205