House Rules Committee Meeting
Video Transcript
Duration: 17 minutes
Speakers: 6
Morning, everybody.
Good to
Good to see y'all this morning.
We'll call
our first rules medium to order.
And as we begin, I'd like to recognize,
Dean Greene to open us up with a word of prayer.
Into your presence and ask you to help us. Help us in every
part of our daily lives,
even when we do not understand.
Be with us through your spirit.
Guide and lead us with your hand.
Let your will be done in all things, oh Lord, as we pray.
Help us through
your word.
Bless us and protect us. Guide us and direct us during our deliberations
in this rules committee.
And father, we ask you to bless our governor,
our speaker,
and
our chairman, and the members of this rules committee
for we make the decisions that go forth for the people.
Bless us now, guide us, and direct us in all things. In thy holy name we pray. Amen.
Thank you, Dean.
Thank you. Next, I'd like to recognize Speaker Pro Tem for a moment.
Speaker Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to take a moment to, remember,
Rules Secretary Mandy Ballinger. This is the first rules meeting that she has not,
been,
both sitting up here or sitting out there
in a very many years. And,
she was,
I think, the thing she would most want to be remembered for is being a mother to Henry,
a wife to Lee, a daughter,
very devoted to her mother before she passed, and her father, who is, still living.
And then after all of that, she was a state representative
and,
a real servant to the people in Cherokee County. And so if we could just take a moment,
a quiet moment to remember Manny Ballinger. Moment of silence.
Thank you, members.
Thank you, Progym.
Well, since this is our first,
meeting of the year we've got a couple little housekeeping,
comments I'd like to make. First of all,
secretary of the committee, Trey Kelly, right here. Trey, I'd like to have you with us and part of this committee. And also,
for you, all the members and everybody, get to know our intern,
your with us, Davis Camuso. He's sitting right over here. Davis, glad to have him working with us up there. So feel free to stop by and see him. He'd be glad to help you with whatever
we need to do.
Now, let's go ahead and begin our deliberations this morning, and we're going to call on Representative Chairman Smith to make a presentation to us this morning.
Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Rules Committee. Good morning again.
I bring to you today a bill called House Resolution 1,008.
And the background on this and why we're having to do this at this point in time,
it goes to the history of the state of Georgia and how we've dealt with our water and environmental challenges through the years.
We've had,
extreme problems in the late 90s,
all the way up until about ten years ago when things
kind of had been smooth.
The fears,
is, you know, maybe followed by a drought. There's some predictions there.
Background for the committees who don't know, in 2004,
the General Assembly created
what is known as a comprehensive statewide water management plan.
The first thing that happened there was this the Greater Metropolitan Atlanta area under the arc of the ARC
was created via a legislative bill and,
its role is to
address the concerns of that area for the rest of the state.
We had never done any in-depth study as how to make our state work together as the challenges would come our way.
General Assembly, there's a committee to study that, then there's a committee to study what we were told about that, then there's another committee to study another thing until finally in 2008,
we passed the
and, that resolution
is a guiding, a template, a play
for our for our for our for our for our for our for our for
As it was a new
process,
there was a lot of,
concerns. So a lot of people were assigned
to these regional committees. And
as long as we had
core.
But as we've had some quieter times recently,
most of our regional water planning districts are having difficulty
getting a quorum. And so,
the regional water planning committee, we have a council.
And one of their charges is to periodically revise management plan to reflect
new knowledge and insights.
Resolution.
So this amendment is to reduce the number of governor appointees from 13 to seven. Keep in mind, all these people have to be at the meeting to have a
number of lieutenant governor appointments from six to three.
Council members. Increase the length of appointments from three years to six years.
Require each council to have at least one representative from each of the water and wastewater demand
forecast sectors, municipal, industrial,
agriculture, and energy. Those are obviously your consumers of our natural resources.
And so that's what this bill does. It's a resolution enabling this to happen.
I'll stand for any questions, Ms. Chair.
Okay. Thank you. We have a couple of questions.
Lou Heapley, is that you?
Thank you, mister chairman. Good morning, madam chair. Good morning.
A quick question.
Would
you help me understand why we're going from three years to six years on their term?
I understand reducing the number, but talk to me about the term
change. And so for this to work and the numbers to serve, all the committee had to be recommended
to our speaker, governor.
And what was happening, it was a loop. By the time they got enough names to make the appointment, it was three years raw, and they're having to make new appointments. And
the beauty was But the function is not what it is.
And the idea
is these are not closed meetings at all. They're open to the public and people interested in our region to want to
need to make an effort to get their names before the ones who do the appointment. So it's not
to be exclusive. It's meant to be
dwarfs give our regions the tools they need in a timely manner.
They're not going to be able to do what we've asked them to do. So it's not intended at all to
I know to explain it. I ran a business. I had a lot of employees at one point. But then all of a sudden, things shifted,
classroom.
And I don't know that they learned anything, because you have too many to be effective. So
resolution
form, these regional water plans, except for Atlanta.
And we get to visit it every year. So if this is not working, we're just trying to put it back on the right track
able to help the citizens of the state of Georgia.
No one knows well, a few who were here back in the 1990s.
Our act together. Now, thanks to the efforts of what we've done through the year, we are the most recognized state in our nation for being able to address the concern.
Make
some adjustments to continue to
help our citizens.
I have another question. Doctor Newton, chairman Newton. Thank you, mister chairman. Thank you for the for the bill. This is this mostly a structural setup for this council to allow it to run more efficiently and be able to get it, or does it actually get into the the real specific plan as well? Like, are there interbasin transfers allowed? Things like that that some rural areas have been more concerned about with a metropolitan area that may have water needs. Interbasin transfers, at least over in my East area,
is a concern. Are we approving a plan or just to make the structure a workable structure? We are making the structure work. Any change to a plan would have to come through the legislative process as a bill.
And so this is really giving the people who are serving our citizens
something that works. So they
some parts of the state who are still able to do it, and they're meeting with other regions.
They're
facing more immediate problems. And they're doing what they were charged to do, which is meet
coming up with ideas, addressing the problems,
but they have no legislative
power. It is building an esprit de corps for the regions of our state.
Okay. Don't see any other questions. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee.
Okay.
Let's set a calendar
for January
29,
legislative day '9,
under modified structure, House Resolution
ten-eight.
Is there a we have a move in a second? Is there any opposition?
It's
Okay.
That will be our calendar
for the next legislative day, the ninth.
Let me make a couple of announcements before we break up. First of all,
today, every day that we're here is a special day, but today is a very special day, because it's the birthday of speaker pro tem Jan Jones. Happy birthday.
Representative Williams, you have to come in. Thank you, mister chairman, and happy birthday, madam pro tem. Quick question on Qualys Light and just one bill. I've got two or three I'd like to put on if it's alright right now. I don't want you.
Yes, sir. I I've got your name by several, and you and I are gonna be discussing those as we go through the process. Thank you.
And and along that line, I I wanna thank you for being here this morning. Chairman Hatchett, thank you. I know you're up to your ears and numbers back there and everything, but we thank you. Each one of you members on this committee,
this is a special committee. You asked to be on this committee and the speaker put you on
here.
Ms. Lewis is taking role every day,
and we're keeping up with that, and we expect
all our members to show up and be here. So please make every effort that you can to attend all the members. It's important,
all the meetings. It's important that you be here. And if you have any issues or questions or problem, miss Lewis is in the office and Leo is there, and certainly I am too. So thank you for that.
Our next rules meeting will be Monday
at 09:00.
We'll meet here,
in this room Monday at 09:00.
Any other comments or questions or announcements from anybody?
If not, we'll adjourn the meeting. Thank you very much.