This week at the State House

Posted
This week, the House passed S.954, a joint resolution delaying the Public Service Commission’s ruling on the prudency of abandoning the V.C. Summer nuclear construction project. The House added language requiring the PSC to remove the V.C. Summer rate hikes from consumers’ power bills until all litigation is finished and the case decided. The bill will now go back to the Senate, where the debate will be over the temporary lowering of rates prior to a final ruling by the PSC. The House Judiciary Committee passed two bills (H.4421 and H.5049) amending the alternative energy net metering regulations. These bills are currently on the contested calendar in the House, and we will be publishing an analysis of these bills in the near future. H.4977, a bill bringing state code into conformity with the governor/lt. governor joint ticket constitutional amendment passed in 2014, passed the Senate Judiciary Committee and received second reading in the Senate without any extraneous language being added. A similar bill stalled in conference committee for some time due to the inclusion of unnecessary provisions regarding the duties of the lt. governor and pay of constitutional officers. H.4977 simply brings state law into line with the State Constitution, which is all that bill needed to do. Finally, legislation calling for an Article V Convention of States to amend the U.S. Constitution passed a House subcommittee this week. The next step for the bill is a full Judiciary Committee hearing.