I hope that you had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

In staff news, my Legislative Aide Matthew Gregory, who has served Legislative District 32 (LD32) for two years, will be moving on. I wish Matt well in his new position and thank him for all his hard work and help that he has given the constituents of LD32 and my office. We welcome our new Legislative Aide, Travis Waldron, who is from LD32 having grown up in Geneva and graduated from Fillmore Central High School. Travis previously worked for Nebraska Farmers Union where he focused on policy affecting rural Nebraska. We are very excited to have a Legislative Aide from our district, which is a rare thing among senators’ offices.

The 108th Legislative Session begins on Wednesday, January 4th, and will run until early June. The first two weeks of the session are devoted to bill introduction and I plan to introduce 12 bills this session. A few of them include:

• Updating the Beginning Farmer program to allow more participation
• Two bills to assist counties in funding for bridges
• Creating a refundable state tax credit for commercial biodiesel
• Expanding the Independent Processor Assistance Program that was created in a previous bill of mine to include medium-sized processors in the allocation of the remaining ~$4.5 million
• Allowing public power utilities to lease their dark fiber for broadband use
• Making the Livestock Modernization tax credit more accessible to small livestock producers
• Expanding opportunities in Nebraska’s cottage food laws 
• Introducing a Czech Heritage specialty license plate

In future columns I will go into further explanation of these bills as I introduce them and the hearings get scheduled.

If you have questions or concerns about these bills or others, feel free to contact me or my legislative staff. You can also stay up to speed on bills by subscribing to the Unicameral Update by sending an email to uio@leg.ne.gov or calling 402-471-2788. The Unicameral Update is free of charge.

Thank you for choosing me to represent you in your Nebraska State Legislature and I look forward to hearing your views on legislation this session.