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House Environment, Energy and Technology panel sets procedure to review DEQ rules, assigns staff support
Summary
At an organizational meeting, the House Environment, Energy and Technology Committee set a schedule and review process for upcoming Department of Environmental Quality rule dockets, assigned committee proofreaders and introduced an LSO science policy fellow who will provide confidential research support.
The House Environment, Energy and Technology Committee met for an organizational session and agreed on a process to review roughly 10 Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) administrative rule dockets, asked agencies to provide plain‑English summaries and statutory citations for each rule change, and confirmed committee proofreaders.
Chairman Barbieri opened the meeting and asked members to prepare to review DEQ materials before agency presentations. "If we can begin to get the statutory citation of what they're enforcing, what they're implementing, and we can get a plain English understanding of what the rule does and what the change is, we're gonna have a better handle on whether or not it's comporting with the intent of the statute," Chairman Barbieri said. He said DEQ expects to present multiple expert areas across two committee sessions and urged members to read brief summaries before the presentations.
The committee confirmed Representative Fuhrman and Representative Egbert as the group's proofreaders for committee materials. Committee secretary Wendy Carver Herbert, who said this is her sixth session working committees, reminded members that committee folders and materials are available electronically and offered staff help for access issues.
The committee also met the Legislative Services Office research fellow assigned to the panel. "My name is Dr. Kaelin Casey, and I'm a science policy fellow in LSO this year," Dr. Casey said. She described her role: "I perform nonpartisan research for anyone in the legislature," including legislative histories, budget questions with LSO budget staff and summaries of peer‑reviewed literature. Dr. Casey said she adheres to LSO confidentiality rules and that research requested through LSO remains confidential unless the requester asks otherwise.
Chairman Barbieri said he had given Dr. Casey a research task about distinguishing between contrails, cloud seeding and the widely discussed term "chemtrails" because constituents had asked for clarification. A member noted that Janet Jessup in the budget office had already gathered some materials on the topic.
Logistics discussed included the committee acronym (EENT), electronic access to materials, and a plan to divide rule dockets for individual members to draft plain‑language descriptions. Chairman Barbieri asked representatives on one side of the table to start from the bottom of the docket list and the other side to start from the top, then meet in the middle ahead of DEQ's presentations scheduled for an upcoming Thursday.
No formal votes on policy or legislation were recorded in the transcript of this meeting. The session concluded after these organizational items and introductions.
