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Senate advances bill keeping explosive-manufacturer location details confidential while preserving agency access
Summary
After reconsideration and extended debate, the Senate voted to advance Senate Bill 61, which preserves agency and public-safety access to hazardous-materials information while exempting precise magazine-location details from public disclosure; the final roll call was 21-6 with two absent.
Senate Bill 61, debated at length Jan. 29, would change parts of the state's records-access practice to allow certain location details for explosive manufacturers to remain confidential to reduce theft and misuse risk while ensuring regulatory and public-safety agencies retain access.
Sponsor Senator Wright said the bill allows explosive manufacturers to keep locations of explosives in magazines or on private premises confidential while continuing to require disclosure of materials, uses and other regulated information to agencies such as the Fire Department and the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). "Previous to now... that is public information," the sponsor said, and the change is intended to protect sensitive location data from misuse.
Opponents warned the change could limit neighboring landowners' ability to obtain location information they might need to assess risks. Senator Spencer argued that adjacent property owners could be placed at risk by losing access to site-specific location data; sponsor Wright and supporters replied that public-safety and regulatory agencies would still receive the locational information and that other parts of regulated hazardous-materials information would remain publicly available.
After extended debate and questions about GRAMA procedure and local safety, the Senate held a roll-call vote and the presiding officer announced SB61 received 21 ayes, 6 nays, and 2 absent and passed to the third-reading calendar.
