Legislative Update - February 27, 2009

The state budget has been approved and signed by the Governor and includes a number of cuts and increases in alcohol and cigarette taxes.  The session is in the 18^th day and only has 12 days remaining.  The past week has been active in regard to forestry legislation and action has been taken on three forestry related bills.  The major legislation that affects the wood industry, landowners and forestry interests are listed below along with the most current activity.  Go to the member's section at www.kfia.org to see a list of the bills that are being tracked by KFIA.   We encourage all members that have any questions to contact the office for more details. 

House Bill 211 - Amends KRS 149.330 to include removal of woody biomass in the definition of "timber harvesting operations" to include energy production in definition of commercial purposes for "timber harvesting operations" and excludes firewood cut for personal use.  Clarifies existing law to insure that all commercial logging falls under state BMP requirements.  Was heard in the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee on Feb. 26 and after much discussion barely passed out of Committee due to concerns about regulating small firewood harvesters.  Will need to be amended on the House floor to clarify language in order to be approved. 

House Bill 235 - Establishes in statute the Forest Health Board to address insect, disease, natural disasters and other health issues related to forest health and requires annual reporting to the legislature.  Also creates amends KRS 149.336 to include forest fire prevention as part of the Division of Forestry's education program curriculum.  Approved by the House Natural Resources Committee on February 12 and passed the House on February 25 after being amended to include two legislators as non-voting members.  Has been sent to the Senate and is awaiting assignment to a committee. 

House Bill 396 - Creates a new section of KRS Chapter 149 to authorize the Division of Forestry to investigate forestry-related crimes and authorizes the secretary to appoint forest crime investigators to be certified as peace officers and investigate and make arrests for certain forestry-related crimes; creates a new section of KRS Chapter 149 to give the Attorney General, Commonwealth's attorneys, and county attorneys concurrent jurisdiction for prosecuting forestry-related crimes and requires forest crime investigators to be certified as peace officers.  Current budget will not allow funding and without funds the legislation will not be effective.  Assigned to the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee. 

House Bill 397 - Amends KRS 149.348 to increase the maximum civil penalty for violation of bad actor provisions to $5000 for repeat offenders and allows the cabinet to contract with local county attorneys or Commonwealth's attorneys to enforce collection of fines imposed under the bad actor provisions and to share in the amount of recovery; allow the Commonwealth to attach the defendant's property in recovery actions for fines imposed under the bad actor provisions; allow the cabinet to direct a logger to cease operations for failure to pay a civil penalty; give the Circuit Court of Franklin County concurrent jurisdiction over enforcement actions for fines imposed under the bad actor provisions.  This legislation would allow Division of Forestry the ability to close down bad actor operators that have not paid fines.  Received a hearing in the House Natural Resources Committee on February 26 and was passed over without a vote due to concerns about increasing the fine and the committee opposed granting jurisdiction to Franklin County.  The Committee gave a strong message that better efforts need to be made to first collect fines without adding new regulations. 

House Bill 421 - Relating to the sale of timber and creates a new section of KRS Chapter 364 to require the seller of trees, timber, or forest products to produce a contract or deed showing title to the goods in the seller; require the purchaser to keep the instrument for no less than two years; provide for a penalty of one hundred dollars per instrument for failure to comply.  This bill was introduced on February 23 and assigned to the House Natural Resources Committee.  KFIA is strongly opposed to this bill that is supposed to affect timber trespass but will have little or no affect on the issue.  Also as written the bill would affect movement of forest products and is very confusing and heavy with regulatory requirements.  If this bill gets any attention the Association will send out an alert although due to time constraints the bill has little chance to move during this session.

The KFIA website members only section lists all bills that are being tracked by the Association.  Go to the LRC website at www.lrc.state.ky.us to see complete details on all legislation.  You can contact and find your legislator from the LRC website or call 800-372-7181 to leave a message or 502-564-8100 to speak directly to your legislator.