Guest Blog: Back in Session
By Senator Mike Kehoe, Missouri’s District 6
Saturday, August the 27th marked the end of the nine stop summer flap-jack tour. I had a great time chatting with many of you and appreciate you enduring the coffee that my chief of staff brewed at each stop. In every instance you gave me candid feedback and asked pointed questions about: 1) what state government is doing to help grow Missouri’s economy, 2) why has the governor called a special session of the legislature, and 3) what is the status of a second nuclear plant at the current Callaway site. Jobs and growing Missouri’s economy remain your top priority, and it is mine too.
This week the Missouri Senate convened to begin discussions on economic development legislation that is part of Governor Nixon’s special session call, specifically to address economic development legislation that failed to pass during the regular session. This legislation includes potential business incentives and much needed tax-credit reform all with the goal of expanding and growing jobs in Missouri. I look forward to honest and straightforward discussions on how and if this legislation can help to improve Missouri’s economy. I appreciate the large number of calls the office has received, and I will bear your insights in mind as I participate in discussions.
Unlike how things happen in Washington DC, where legislators pass bills in the dead of night that they have never had time to read, the Missouri Senate is taking an appropriately deliberative approach by adjourning until Monday afternoon to allow all Senators to fully read the bill and prepare for debate.
Unfortunately, the best and most significant job-creation legislation that was discussed during this past session (ESP legislation that would facilitate construction of a second nuclear plant at the current Callaway site), is not part of the governor’s special session call. Billions of dollars and thousands of jobs have fallen victim to politics at its absolute worst. Noranda Aluminum, backed by $500/hour attorneys and two other large industrial companies, has continued to hold the state’s energy policy hostage and prevent the largest construction project in the state’s history, all to pad their own bottom-line.
I am small business owner and I understand the need to control costs and monitor every expense, but the actions of these large industrial users, in preventing the option for a second nuclear plant, is destructive in its self-service and guarantees that their energy costs will rise as current coal-fired plants are retired without reliable and efficient replacements.
Throughout the course of the summer I continued discussions with both sides in an effort to reach consensus to give the governor the opportunity to include this in a special session call. Quite frankly, I thought a deal was done, only to have Noranda’s CEO balk at standing beside Ameren’s CEO in front of Governor Nixon to shake hands on a deal that would grant all the provisions of the legislation heard on the last day of session AND grant a carve-out to the large industrial users in compliance with the language of Proposition C.
I, and a large number of my fellow Senators, now clearly see all the hours of effort and negotiations over the last nine months for what they truly were: a grand charade designed to protect three large industrial users and to pad the wallets of a couple of lawyers lucky enough to represent them. This was never about funding for the Office of Public Counsel, evidenced by the fact that a 400 percent increase in OPC funding was “insufficient”, nor was it ever about consumer protections. I will not stop working toward a second nuclear plant at the current Callaway site because I know it is critical for Missouri’s future, but I and my fellow Senators will most certainly apply the lessons learned from this session.
Representative Riddle and I today asked via letter that Governor Nixon add early site permit legislation to his special session call so that we can take Missouri’s energy future out of the hands of the special interests that roam the hallways of the capitol and place it rightfully into the hands of elected officials. I am certain that early site permit legislation has greater support than any other bill being considered during this special session.
On Thursday August 25th, Representative Caleb Jones and I met with sheriffs and members of drug task forces from central Missouri to discuss the real and potential impacts of halting funds to the Missouri Sheriff Methamphetamine Relief Taskforce (MoSMART). The thirty officers funded by this $1.5 million of federal funding do great work focusing solely on stopping the scourge that is meth in Missouri.
On Thursday Sept 8th I met with the leadership of the Department of Public Safety in an effort to enlist their support as I work to ensure that these thirty officers continue to be funded, whether from state or federal funds, after December 31st of this year. Meth destroys too many lives and wrecks too many families for this program, proven to be a successful national model, to be allowed to die on the vine.
I am in this office to serve the constituents of the 6th Senatorial District. Please contact us at (573) 751-2076 if my office or I can be of any assistance to you or if you have questions.
