Published: July 05, 2007 11:51 pm            

EKU Projects could be OK’d

Local legislators question session

Local legislators questioned the reasoning Thursday for a special session called by the Gov. Ernie Fletcher four months before the fall election.

Fletcher signed an executive order on Monday calling lawmakers back to Frankfort at 4 p.m. Thursday at a cost to taxpayers of about $60,000 per day. The first-term Republican governor is fighting for a second term against Democrat Steve Beshear in the Nov. 6 election.

“I don’t believe that there is anything on the call of the session that represents an emergency,” said state Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond. “Therefore, I don’t believe that it’s worth the expenditure of tax payer’s money of $60,000 a day for us to be in session.”

The primary task waiting for lawmakers will be, according to the governor, to deal with an incentive package for energy companies looking to build high-tech alternative fuel plants involving coal.

Peabody Energy Corp. has said it is considering building a coal conversion plant that could cost up to $3 billion and create up to 800 full-time jobs. Peabody executive Rick Bowen has said the company is looking at putting the plant in either Illinois, Indiana or Kentucky, but that the bluegrass state needs to offer incentives in order to stay in the running.

“We need to be able to produce our own gasoline or energy,” said state Rep. Lonnie Napier, R-Lancaster, who represents part of Berea “We don’t need to depend on countries who wouldn’t pull us out of a mud hole if we were stuck in it.”

“I never want to accuse anybody of political moves when I don’t know their motive,” he said of the reasoning behind the special session. “I know the energy crisis that we have in the state of Kentucky and across this country is major. We probably ought to do something toward the energy bill. Of course, there’s a local project or two in there for Madison County. I’d like to see the money in there for that.”

Time will tell whether or not voting on an energy plan during a special session is necessary, said state Sen. Ed Worley, D-Richmond.

“I don’t know whether this is imminent and needs to be done before January or whether it’s not imminent,” he said. “I’m willing to give the governor the benefit of the doubt. Time will show. I’ve done a lot of industrial negotiations, and I think it is a stretch that you would pass something in July and it would cause something of that magnitude to happen by November.”

“If we have a special session and adopt an energy policy and by November, there is no multi-billion corporation, then it’s quite obvious the special session was not needed,” Worley said. “If that corporation truly exists out there, we hope that they come to the table and are part of the dialogue and are part of committee hearings that will be held.

“We’ll make a determination that they are for real, that they have the ability to build this plant and they will employee the people that has been presented to the legislature,” he said.

Fletcher’s to-do list for legislators also includes a proposal to authorize $427.6 million in capital projects — most of which the governor has vetoed once before from the two-year state spending plan.

Two of the projects are the authority to issue bonds that could generate up to $10.52 million for new student housing at Eastern Kentucky University and a $5.3 million to fund a merger of EKU’s and the University of Kentucky’s dairy operations at the Meadowbrook Farm facility in Madison County.

“If we stay in session for any length of time, I think (the EKU projects) will be funded, along with the other projects that the governor vetoed,” Moberly said before meeting with fellow Democrats on Thursday afternoon to decide how the session would be handled. “It depends on whether any of those vetoed projects will be taken up in a session. We may not stay long enough to take up vetoed projects.

“They will eventually be approved,” he said. “It’s just a question of whether or not they and other projects represent an emergency and could not be done just as well in January, saving the taxpayers’ money.”

Worley agreed, describing the merger of the dairy herd as “a very good project for this county.”

“It’s one that I support a great deal, as well as Representative Moberly,” he said. “We want to see that project happen, and I think we will see that project happen, if not during this special session than during the January session.”

EKU President Joanne Glasser also said she was optimistic the projects would be funded.

“We remain hopeful for funding of the dairy farm merger, which is a wonderful example of two state universities pooling their resources to better serve the commonwealth, and for our request for authority to issue bonds for student housing,” she said. “Student housing is a critical component in our continuing efforts to reach more and more Kentuckians with quality higher education and provide a living and learning environment conducive to student success.”

Fletcher had vetoed many of the projects in 2006, saying at the time that the state could not afford to take on that much new debt. However, buoyed by better-than-expected state revenue, Fletcher and some lawmakers have favored reinstating the projects.

“We never figured that out,” Moberly said about why the projects originally were vetoed. “The governor vetoed them. Now, he wants to put them on a special session call as if they were an emergency.”

“They should have never been vetoed in the first place because 138 members of the General Assembly voted on every single one of those projects,” said Worley, adding that many of those projects could wait until January for approval. The governor used very poor judgment in vetoing those projects. Many are badly needed projects across the state, including the expansion of the runway at the Bluegrass Airport.”

If all of the items on the governor’s special session list are addressed, Moberly said the process could take several weeks at about $500,000 a week.

This marks the third time Fletcher has called the legislature into a special session since he took office in 2003. He also called sessions in October 2004 and June 2006.

A call for a special session with 67 items on the agenda represents a real change in the system, Moberly said.

“We have annual sessions now,” he said. “When the Kentucky voters approved the annual sessions, I believe they thought we wouldn’t have to have as many special sessions, especially ones that would take as long as this one would to deal with that many items.”



The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Bryan Marshall can be reached at bmarshall@richmondregister.com or 624-6691.

        

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