Day 27: What's going on with the community air monitoring bill?
We've got the answer
Good morning and welcome back to 60 Days, your daily guide to the West Virginia Legislature.
Today is Monday, February 5, 2024 — the 27th day of the regular session. It’s also Recovery Advocacy Day at the Capitol. Members of the West Virginia Association of Addiction and Prevention Professionals will be on hand to hobnob with lawmakers and learn about legislation that impacts treatment, prevention and recovery efforts in the state.
Today’s Agenda:
Blame it parliamentary procedure. If you’ve been watching H.B. 5018, you may be wondering why it’s NOT up for a passage vote today.
The bill that would limit how the state can use data gathered by community air monitoring programs should have been on third reading, but it’s not on the House’s active calendar for the floor session that begins at 11 a.m.
A well-placed source DEEP INSIDE THE HOUSE’S INNER CIRCLE tells the 60 Days editorial board that there was a problem with how the bill was handled on the floor on Friday, leading to the delay of a vote by the full House.
The upshot is, those for and against the bill have more time to try to bring delegates to their way of seeing things.
Scoops like this make subscribing to 60 Days worth a coffee or two, right?
West Virginia Education Association President Dale Lee is scheduled to appear before the House Education Committee at 2 p.m.
Lee is to present the results of a survey that outlines the concerns of WVEA members.
Meeting with the Senate Education Committee ten days ago, Lee said the results show high levels of stress and burnout.
The House Judiciary Committee has a couple of notable bills on its agenda for its 2:30 p.m. meeting. Both are being watched by West Virginia’s LGBTQ community.
H. B. 4233, would prohibit the use of non-binary as a gender description on birth certificates.
H. B. 5243 is the proposal that would create the Women’s Bill of Rights. Governor Justice made a big to-do of it last week during a press conference. If the full legislature signs off on it, West Virginia would become the fifth state to enact a bill that Democrats say is anti-transgender.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is meeting at 3 p.m. and has that bill that cracks down on driving too slowly in the left lane of West Virginia’s multi-lane highways on its agenda.
And finally, after meeting early on Friday, the full Senate will return to the customary 11 a.m. start to the floor session. Here’s today’s Senate Calendar — and here’s a list of other committee meetings on the schedule.
10:45 a.m. - House Rules
10:45 a.m. - Senate Rules
1:00 p.m. - House Finance
1:00 p.m. - House Government Organization
1 p.m. - Senate Military
2 p.m. - Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources
Looking further ahead:
The Raleigh County Republican Executive Committee is hosting a debate this week among the four major Republican candidates for Governor.
The event is being held tomorrow evening at Glade Springs Resort in Daniels and will include former Delegate Moore Capito, Huntington businessman Chris Miller, Secretary of State Mac Warner and Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.
Want to listen live? The debate is being moderated by Hoppy Kercheval of WVMetrosNews, which will live stream it here. It’s scheduled to get underway at 5:30pm.
The debate is expected to recorded by southern West Virginia’s WOAY-TV for later broadcast.
In Washington tomorrow morning, the Republican-led House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on President Biden’s pause on new approvals for liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.
Biden paused the approvals so his administration can look into the environmental and economic impacts of the exports.
West Virginia Republicans aren’t happy with the move. Senate President Craig Blair with a number of his colleagues backing him up, voiced opposition to the pause during a press conference outside the Senate chamber last week. (Post on X).
The House hearing entitled “Politics Over People: How Biden's Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Export Ban Threatens America's Energy and Economic Security" gets underway tomorrow at 10 a.m.
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin is the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee. His panel is holding a similar hearing on Thursday.
60 Days links: 60 Days has generated some 368 link clicks since the beginning of the legislative session. It’s a small but important thing to do to. Your decision to read what’s on the other side of a link we provide helps support journalists and journalism in West Virginia.
Friday’s debate in the House over a resolution that supports Texas’s fight with the Biden administration over migration illustrates the point of this article from The Columbia Journalism Review — which links the collapse of local news outlets around the country to the nationalization of local politics.
And here’s Phil Kabler’s latest Statehouse Beat column for the Charleston Gazette-Mail in which he questions the legislature’s priorities.
Resources:
Know of any bills we should be keeping tabs on? Any events, press conferences, etc., we should know about? Tell us about them in the comments.
Keep up the good work