Spring                Waning Seed Moon

“They played hard. They played defense. They respected their competition.   This was a team.”   John Schuhmann on the USA 2008 men’s basketball team winning gold.

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As the session moves closer to its May 18 adjournment date, more of the legislative committee’s attention gets taken up by necessary defensive work, that is, staying alert to bills that would harm the environment as well as pressing for adoption of bills that would help.

I’ve written more than once about attempts to repeal the nuclear moratorium.  Preventing such legislation from passing is defensive work.  The 2008 USA men’s basketball team recovered the gold medal with good defense.

Competitive arenas like the legislative process and the Olympics demand an offense and a defense.  Always.  Without both, as the USA Olympic team learned, gains from the offense can be lost on defense.

The nuclear moratorium repeal made it into the Senate’s omnibus energy bill on a floor amendment.  It did not make it into the House omnibus energy bill, thanks in part to good defensive work.   A floor amendment will be offered when the House takes up its omnibus energy bill, probably next Monday.  Time for more defense.

Later, the energy bill’s conference committee will be yet another place for defense since the repeal is in the Senate’s bill.  It will have to be reconciled with the House version.

A different sort of defensive work is underway on HF1557.  This is a bill that would make taking legal action much more risky for groups like the Sierra Club.  It is a direct affront to the due process of citizens wishing to challenge the decision of governmental bodies in the court system.  In the Senate Tom Bakk carries this legislation.  This bill would make challenging companies like Polymet in court many times more difficult.

ATV legislation has also moved to defensive work.  There is, for example, a bill to increase the allowable engine size to increase from 800 cc’s to 900 cc’s.