Tag: WV Senate

Senate Begins Debate Over Common Core Repeal

Members of the West Virginia Senate began discussing a bill Monday that, if approved, would repeal Common Core standards in West Virginia. The legislation passed the state House of Delegates Saturday.

House Bill 2934 calls on the West Virginia Department of Education to repeal the Common Core standards adopted in 2010 for math and language arts. It then requires the board, along with the state Department of Education, to draft new standards.

Members of the Senate Education Committee heard testimony from stakeholders, including parents and a fifth grade student from Kenova Elementary School. Republican sponsors of the bill, Delegates Jim Butler and Michael Moffatt also spoke to the committee calling for the repeal of the national standards.

Butler told the committee no West Virginia teachers were involved in writing the standards, which newly appointed state Board of Education member Beverly Kingery disagreed with.

Kingery is the former superintendent of Nicholas County schools and told Senators she sent teachers from her county to participate in workgroups that adapted the national standards to set that are West Virginia specific, known as the Next Generation Content Standards. Those standards are in place in West Virginia Schools today.

Speaking against the bill, American Federation of Teachers West Virginia President Christine Campbell said lawmakers should be more focused on making sure teachers across the state have the professional development they need to teach the more rigorous standards rather than repealing something teachers across the state tell her are working.

“We’re really moving in the right direction and we have to have the time to do this,” Campbell said, “and if we go back we’re going to be starting from scratch and set the state back at least five to seven years.”

State Superintendent of Schools Dr. Michael Martirano joined the department in September and told the committee he hears the legislature’s concerns over the standards, but asked for more time to dig in and analyze what the state has before them.

“I am doing a very intensive review of our education model. I’ve come with expectations from our citizens, from our elected officials to do certain things to improve our educational system I need the opportunity to dig in deep to our education standards and understand where those concerns are,” he told the committee.

The Department of Education predicts the repeal will cost the state $113 million to craft new standards.

The bill was placed in an education subcommittee for further discussion. Chaired by Sen. Boley, the committee also includes Sen. Robert Karnes and Sen. Bill Laird and will hold their first meeting Tuesday morning at 8:30. 

Senate Approves Bill to Scale Back Storage Tank Law

Senators approved 30-1 a bill that will scale back the state’s above ground storage tank law approved in 2014. The law came as a reaction to the Freedom…

Senators approved 30-1 a bill that will scale back the state’s above ground storage tank law approved in 2014. The law came as a reaction to the Freedom Industries’ chemical spill into the Kanawha River that left 300,000 West Virginians without usable water for as many as ten days.

Senate Bill 423 separates tanks into two levels, with level one tanks receiving the highest level of scrutiny from the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Level one tanks include:

  • Any tank containing 50,000 gallons or more
  • Any tank containing a federally defined hazardous material
  • Any take located five hours upstream of a public water intake

Senate Judiciary Chair Charles Trump called the 2014 law “too broad” and said the focus of the new bill was to tighten the scope so the DEP could be focused on the tanks that have the greatest potential to cause harm to drinking water.

“I think the breadth of last year’s act suggests that the final act, the act that was passed by the House and sent to the governor, went substantially beyond the protection of drinking water. We tried in drafting this bill to remain focused on drinking water,” he said.

The 2014 Above Ground Storage Tank Act put some 50,000 tanks under the DEP’s purview. Trump says this bill will lessen the scope to about 5,000 tanks. 

W.Va. Senate Approves Bill to Not Require Handgun Permits

Senators have approved a push to make West Virginia the sixth state not to require concealed handgun permits.

The Senate’s 32-2 vote Monday would drop concealed carry permit requirements. Arkansas, Alaska, Arizona, Vermont and Wyoming similarly don’t require them.

Open carry, like a holster on a hip, is legal without permitting in West Virginia. Thirty-one states total have similar open-carry rules.

Covering handguns up, like with a coat, requires a permit.

Senators rejected amendments requiring training, prohibiting people younger than 21 from concealed carrying and mandating licenses for nonresidents.

The state Sheriffs Association expressed concerns. Association Executive Director Rodney Miller said officers would have to assume more people had concealed firearms and lacked training.

Proponents cited 2nd Amendment arguments.

The measure heads to the House.

Senate Amends Opioid Antagonist Bill after Veto

Members of the Senate amended Senate Bill 335 Thursday after it was returned by Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin. Tomblin vetoed the bill citing technical deficiencies.

The Opioid Antagonist bill allows emergency responders, medical professionals and friends and family to administer drugs that reverse the effects of an overdose, possibly saving a person’s life. 

The bill was introduced on behalf of the governor, who wrote in his veto message a fully supported the bill, but the technical clean up was necessary to make the law sound. 

Senators Thursday passed the governor’s suggested amendments and approved the bill 34-0.

Senate Starts Work to Scale Back Law after Chemical Spill

State lawmakers have taken their first action to scale back a wide-ranging law safeguarding against chemical spills from aboveground tanks.

A January 2014 chemical spill that contaminated drinking water for 300,000 residents for days spurred the law.

A Senate committee passed an amended bill Tuesday to deregulate about 36,000 aboveground storage tanks from the new law.

Currently, about 48,000 tanks are registered under the law.

Approximately 12,000 tanks within a certain distance of water supplies, or containing hazardous materials, would remain regulated with the bill.

Some lawmakers and industry groups have said current law goes too far.

Environmental groups have opposed reducing protections.

Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Randy Huffman spoke in support of proposed changes.

The Senate floor is the next step.

A House version hasn’t been heard yet.

Why Senate Dems Say Floor Fight Is Bigger Than Charter Schools

An argument over parliamentary procedure Tuesday has Senate Democrats up in arms, accusing the Republican majority of disregarding the chamber’s standard…

An argument over parliamentary procedure Tuesday has Senate Democrats up in arms, accusing the Republican majority of disregarding the chamber’s standard rules of order.

The disagreement started Monday when Senate Minority Leader Jeff Kessler successfully killed Senate Bill 14, a bill to create charter schools in West Virginia, during a Finance Committee meeting. Kessler, who said he simply counted during the meeting that he had a Democratic majority in attendance, made a motion to postpone the bill indefinitely.

Kessler maintained such a motion, according to the Jeffersonian Rules of Order, prevents lawmakers from taking up the bill for the remainder of the session.

“They accused us [Monday] of taking advantage of them politically,” Kessler said, “but they’ve been voting all session as a political block. I can count less than a half a dozen times where they broke rank and at the end of the day to say they lost one because someone was sick is wrong.”

In a press release Tuesday afternoon, the majority party explained three Republican Senators had missed the Finance meeting for various excused reasons, Sen. Chris Walters for a family illness, Sen. Jeff Mullins for an illness of his own and Sen. Tom Takubo to participate in a deposition.

Earlier Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch Carmichael moved during a morning floor session to have the bill discharged from the Finance Committee, brought to the floor and read a first time, igniting tempers on the Democratic side.

“The bill wasn’t tabled, it was postponed indefinitely,” Senator John Unger said Tuesday. “It can only be reconsidered or taken from the table if someone tables it.”

“The idea is not a debate anymore about charter schools,” he said. “It’s the undermining of the Democratic process.”

The action sets a precedent to allow any bill to be pulled from a committee and debated on the Senate floor, Unger said, invalidating the entire committee process.

“Why even have committee meetings? Why not bring everything to the floor if what is decided in committee is not binding?” Unger said.

He added the decision also adds the potential to have lawsuits leveled against the state.

A release from the majority party said of the decision:

The full Senate, in adopting its own standing rules, has retained the power to withdraw any bill from any committee, even the President’s committee – the Committee on Rules – when the committee has not, for whatever reason, reported the bill.

Senate Bill 14 was read for a first time Tuesday meaning the bill could be up for a vote as early as Thursday.

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