Sunday, April 26, 2009

Legislative Update - Week 15: Post-Summit

[updated Monday]

Rockstar legislators took a bike ride around Salem during the Bike Summit last week! Check out the article and slideshow on Bikeportland. Sadly, no Salem-area legislators joined the ride. Here's Margaux's Summit report on the BTAblog.

The deadline for scheduling work sessions has passed, and since a work session is a requirement to move a bill to the floor of the Senate or House, those without work sessions are no longer viable.

Of course there's an exception! HB 2001, the Transportation gut and stuff, may take on the contents of any of those bills as one or more amendments.

This makes for more back-room dealing and less transparency, alas. So for a bit it may be more difficult to track the progress of bills. Here's the latest on the BTAblog.

A new bill on the radar, not explicitly about bicycling, is House Bill 2377, a proposed ban on cel phone use while driving a motor vehicle. Bikeportland has a story here. The bill moved out of committee with a "do pass" recommendation on Thursday.

Other bills still active:

House Bill 2001 - This is the gut and stuff, so the bill as introduced is pretty useless. No amendments are published yet. Work session scheduled for Monday, April 27.
House Bill 2106 - no change
House Bill 2554 - Passed with amendment to add "person operating a motorcycle" to list of vulnerable roadway users - Referred to Senate Business and Transportation Committee.
House Bill 2946 - Work Session scheduled for Tuesday, April 28.
House Bill 3399 - Work session scheduled for Monday, April 27.

Work Session information:

HB 2001 - House Transportation Committee - Monday, April 27. 1:00 P.M. in HR D
HB 2946 - House Land Use Committee - Tuesday, April 28. 3:00 P.M. in HR E
HB 3399 - House Judiciary Committee - Monday, April 27. 1:00 P.M. in room 357

[Monday update - 2001: A Transportation Odyssey continues its windy ways. Today's worksession did not cover the BTA's amendments, and Chair Beyer carried over the worksession to tomorrow. The big item was amendment "dash eleven," which contained the Land Use Planning and Greenhouse Gas emissions language.

Also, Bikeportland has a story on the Vehicular Homicide Bill, HB 3399, which today did not make it out of commitee.]

Bills without Work Sessions:
Senate Bill 267
Senate Bill 276
Senate Bill 291
Senate Bill 292
Senate Bill 635

House Bill 2120 (All the action's on HB 2001)
House Bill 2681
House Bill 2690
House Bill 2902
House Bill 2971
House Bill 3008
House Bill 3137
House Bill 3164
House Bill 3252 (This was the driver ed bill, not about bicycling explicitly)

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