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House Energy committee outlines scheduling, committee page use and bill deadlines
Summary
At an organizational meeting Tuesday, the House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee reviewed committee procedures: how to use the committee web page, how witnesses should submit materials, a standing leadership scheduling meeting and the legislative crossover and bill-request timelines, staff said.
Representative Kathleen James, chair of the House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee, used Tuesday—s organizational meeting to walk members through how the committee will schedule work, use its committee page and handle witness materials.
James said members should tell leadership early if they have witnesses they want to hear from and that the committee will try to include witnesses who bring expertise on the subject. "As we start to take a look at bills or talk about topics where you have a particular interest, make sure to let me know if you have someone you really wanna hear from," she said.
Committee staff demonstrated the committee web page and pointed members to tabs that will show bills referred to the committee, bills voted out of committee, committee-sponsored drafts, and posted documents and handouts. Jack Walker, the committee—s community assistant, said materials that witnesses want to present should be sent to staff in advance so they can be posted and attached to the witness entry on the page. "This is standard," Walker said of the handout process.
Process and cadence: James said the leadership team will meet most Wednesdays with Jack Walker to plan scheduling and asked members to send scheduling requests by Wednesday for possible inclusion the following week. She said committee time will generally be used in open blocks when members are not on the House floor and that, as a practical matter, "our agenda is gonna be constantly shifting" because people cancel or schedules change.
Bill deadlines and crossover: committee members reviewed legislative timing rules that govern how rapidly committees must act. The chair described the "crossover" concept: policy bills generally must move out of committee by a policy crossover deadline and money bills by a separate money crossover deadline; bills not advanced by crossover will not move forward in that chamber in the near term, although they can be taken up again in the next year of the biennium. A committee member said the deadline to request a full bill draft is Jan. 30; staff said they would confirm exact dates and circulate them to members.
Other housekeeping: Representative Tori (mentioned by James) will lead an informal work group to draft committee guiding principles. The committee plans a short primer from legislative counsel and staff on recent energy-related statutory changes, public records obligations for elected officials and an overview of state IT and broadband topics in coming weeks.
What the meeting did not do: the organizational session did not take votes on bills, set final schedules, or adopt committee guiding principles; those items will be addressed at future meetings.
