I hope everyone had a Blessed Easter weekend. We are now 58 days into the first session of the 108th Legislature. Wednesday afternoon we debated LB683 that created the Broadband Office. It was amended to add LB412 which includes two of my bills, LB122 and LB722.

LB122 is a bill related to the One-Call Notification Act. The bill creates a new committee consisting of operators and excavators who will review, determine and assess the potential violations of the One-Call Act. Any violation where penalties are less than $10,000 will be addressed by the newly created underground committee and any violations over $10,000 will be handled by the Attorney General’s office.

LB722 has been introduced to ensure that the state is prepared for the potential $500 million in federal funds over the next few years for the construction of broadband infrastructure. LB722 has three primary objectives. First, it ends the present system of subsidizing two broadband providers to serve the same area. Second, the bill establishes the regulatory certainty needed to make sure funding is used to reach rural areas. Finally, LB722 ensures that Nebraska will be positioned to cover the ongoing costs of operating the network we are building.

Debate also began on LB565 which provides $250,000 in fiscal year 2023-2024 and fiscal year 2024-2025 from the General Funds to the Department of Economic Development to provide grants to the Hydrogen Hub Industry Working Group to continue their work. These grants would be used by the work group for engineering and modeling work to prepare and support the state in competing for one of the Department of Energy’s regional clean hydrogen hub designations.

During the 2022 legislative session a bill to create the Nebraska Hydrogen Hub Industry Work Group was passed and signed into law. Several industries were included in this work group including Monolith Materials, Werner Trucking, Union Pacific, Nebraska Farm Bureau, Tallgrass Energy, and Nebraska Public Power District. This work group would serve to accelerate the development of production, transportation and ultimately consumption of hydrogen-related products in Nebraska and our partner states.

We have had visitors from several schools in the district this past week. Including Cedar Bluffs elementary, Ashland-Greenwood elementary, Yutan elementary, and FFA members from various high schools from both in and outside the district. Thank you for the opportunity to visit with you, it is always an encouragement to visit with our future generations.

This past week I introduced a celebratory Legislative Resolution, LR81, to Congratulate the National Wild Turkey Foundation on celebrating fifty years since their establishment. The NWTF is the largest and longest-serving nongovernmental stewardship partner of the USDA National Forest Services. They have invested more than half a billion dollars to conserve or enhance more that 22 million acres of critical wildlife habitat, forests, and grasslands across public and private lands.

For additional more information on bills please visit nebraskalegislature.gov. You may reach my office at 402-471-2719 or bbostelman@leg.ne.gov.