Important Floor Votes Tomorrow
by jhwygirl
Montana’s conservative side is already rounding up the troops….championing some of this bad environmental legislation.
In the Senate there are 2 crappy environmental bills – HB483, one of this sessions infamous Crappy Environmental Legislation bills. The Editor at the Button Valley Bugle had a fantabulous write-up on this one (and others), titled Your Coal, Their Rights.
This bills comes from Rep. Llew Jones of Conrad. It has already passed the House on a very disappointing 68-32 vote.
It has come out of Senate Energy and Telecommunications committee on a straight party-line 6-5 vote – where it was amended, but is still as offensive as it was in the first place.
SB507 is also on the Senate floor for 2nd reading, and boy is this one speeding along. The bill itself was only available to the public less than two weeks ago. I wrote about it here.
This bill stinks for two reasons: It allows for permanent easements for existing structures within the states navigable waterbodies – many of which don’t allow navigability. And it does it without MEPA review.
It also allows for leases and licenses – but why – WHY? – would we want to grant permanent easements to structures that block navigability?
Exempting them from MEPA is all the worse. No chance at mitigation. No chance at fish screening – no chance and incorporating or requiring portage.
The entirety of the bill is worse. Just check out the fiscal note. Not only that – it allows these things to increase in footprint with just a notice “when a footprint or associated facilities are relocated.”
Take a moment to let your Senators know what you think about these bills. You can go to Project Vote Smart and enter your address to figure out who it is – or you can use the nifty interactive Legislative District Map.
From there – head on over to this list of Senators for email addresses – or call the Session Information Desk at 406-444-4800 to leave a message for as many as five legislators per call. Your message will be delivered directly to the legislators.
-
Recent Comments
lizard19 on Who Can Can Engstrom? Pancho on Who Can Can Engstrom? petetalbot on Who Can Can Engstrom? petetalbot on Is UM Discriminating Against F… Who Can Can Engstrom… on Is UM Discriminating Against F… Steve W on Is UM Discriminating Against F… Ryan Morton on Is UM Discriminating Against F…
March 26, 2009 at 9:17 pm
I hate to say it, but it looks like we are down to hoping that Governor Clean Coal stops this one. I don’t know how it got this far. Lacking a veto, it’s just a matter of time before it gets to the courts. I don’t see how these bills can’t be unconstitutional.
March 27, 2009 at 6:41 am
I don’t know, Lucky – that “guarantee” word tied to “clean and healthful environment” seems pretty binding.
Any law impeding that seems to be in conflict. Of course, there is a level of reasonability involved.
Taking SB483 into consideration – despite the changes, it still is blocking the ability to certain court challenges. If you didn’t challenge it in the scoping process, you can’t challenge it later. What if you didn’t hear about it? What if the application wasn’t complete? What if something became known about the site or the process after-the-fact?
There should be nothing impeding our access to the courts to challenge environmental issues – that is what 483 is doing.
SB507? I don’t get it. Yesterday there was another bill regarding navigable rivers. The state’s test is the “float a log” test. How can we even allow and perpetuate structures that impede that “float a log” test – and without MEPA?
Now – I get that these are there already. That’s where reasonablilty comes it. The state isn’t going to pay to fix or replace these things – but the granting of an easement (which is forever), is wrong. There are other options for those structures, so that when the do fail or have to be replaced, they can fade gently into the abyss.