How is it possible that a “regional transmission authority” in Arkansas can order our Nebraska public power utilities to shut off electricity to Nebraskans? Nebraska by itself has more than enough electrical generation within our own state to meet the load requirements that Nebraska users have. Why must power be shut off to Nebraskans?

In 2009, when Nebraska’s public power organizations decided to join the Southwest Power Pool, they made this decision all by themselves. The decision to join a 17-state consortium of electrical utilities was never a question before the Legislature. No bill was ever introduced, no public hearings before a committee were ever held, and no public debate by our elected representatives was ever conducted. No bill was ever put on the Governor’s desk for signature or veto. No question was ever put on the ballot for the people to decide.

I question whether or not the Nebraska Public Power District had the legal authority to make such a choice on behalf of our entire state in the first place, especially when it works against one of the reasons the Legislature provided for the existence of public power districts in the very first law written to create them. Nebraska law says that public power districts “have an obligation to provide the inhabitants and customers of the district an adequate, reliable, and economical source of electric power and energy.” Willfully turning off the heat during the coldest winter in generations is the opposite of providing reliable power. It ought to be criminal.

I can tell you one thing for certain, no rancher trying to keep his cattle alive in record cold weather ever voted for this wrong-headed idea. Some years back the Legislature was not pleased with how the Department of Health and Human Services was dealing with government programs for children, so they created an Inspector General for Child Welfare the Legislature could call upon when issues arose. 

The issue of prison overcrowding raised similar concerns in the Legislature so a special investigative committee for the department of corrections was created and they also have an inspector general now. 

In 2011, an entire special session of the Legislature was convened to pass a body of laws that addressed how the Keystone XL pipeline would be routed and built in Nebraska. 

It is plain to see the Nebraska Legislature has a long history of creating more oversight and demanding more accountability for things that our State is not doing very well. Deliberately shutting off electricity to Nebraskans because some outfit in another state ordered us to do so is a life-or-death matter that cries out for more accountability. There are numerous opportunities this year to find a way to bring public power before this legislature under oath. They have some tough questions to respond to. Their very existence may rely on their answers.

I have introduced sixteen bills this session. This is my second in a series of updates where I want to explain what these bills are about. Last week I discussed my State Meat Inspection bill, and my bill to end applying income tax to social security payments. This week, I want to devote this update to LR13CA.  

LR13CA is a legislative resolution to put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot for the voters to ratify in 2022. This requires 30 votes (not the normal 25) to pass. I have introduced a version of this every year I have been in the legislature. This resolution is designed to lower property taxes by addressing the root cause of the problem. High property taxes are a very easy problem to understand, yet one of the most difficult to solve. Nebraska has some of the highest property taxes in the country because we rely upon them to fund public education far too much. Nationally about 40% of the funding for K-12 schools comes from property taxes. In Nebraska, that’s about 60% and in some school districts it is much more. We are 47th in the nation in terms of how much the legislature appropriates and spends on K-12 education. 46 other state legislatures provide more funding for K-12 than we do.

LR13CA places a limit in the constitution on how much property taxes can be used to fund schools. The resolution says no more than 33% of the funding for our public schools can be derived from property taxes. If this was the law today and spending was at the same level, the legislature would have to come up with about $670M in a new general fund appropriation. The question, “How are you going to pay for it?” kills a lot of bills and this is no exception. Soon the debate turns to what spending would senators vote to cut? What tax would they vote to raise? Very quickly discussing the merits of the bill is replaced by arguments over revenue sources and the bill dies (again.) 

The fact remains that having no limit in our constitution for how we fund “the free instruction in the common schools” is the root cause of our high property tax problem. I’m confident the people would pass this proposed amendment by a comfortable margin were it ever put on the ballot. But there are quite a few people and groups who would prefer to never give the public that opportunity. Forcing this body to find an extra $670M would cause a historic political fight because of the massive spending cuts in other programs that would be required. If the past fifty years is any guide, it’s clear that as long as the legislature can continue to pass-off the lion’s share of the funding for schools on to the school districts to fund themselves with property taxes, they will continue to do so.

The first session of the 107th Legislature has convened. First sessions are long, ninety legislative days. Bills introduced but not passed in the first session carry over into the second session. The current end of the session is scheduled for the 10th of June. 

I have introduced sixteen bills this session. I want to devote the next several weekly updates to explaining what they are about. 

LB 237 is a bill to stop applying Nebraska income tax to Social Security payments. Nebraska is one of thirteen states that tax Social Security. Two-thirds of people drawing Social Security benefits have only this money to live on — they have no other source of income. Besides that, the money people pay into Social Security has already been subject to income taxes when you earned it. I consider the practice immoral. I’ve introduced this bill every session I have been a state senator and I’ll continue to until we pass it. As it turns out, Sen. Lindstrom has also introduced a very similar bill so the Revenue Committee will get to hear this idea twice!

LB 235 is a bill to “turn on” state meat inspection and make Nebraska the 28th state to do so. It will take two sessions of the legislature to get this done. This bill is the first step. In 1968 Congress passed a food safety law requiring all meat be inspected. At the time, most every state had their own meat inspection program. Like a lot of states, Nebraska turned off their state meat inspection program in 1971 to save money on something the federal government decided they were going to do. It was a good idea at the time. Now it is increasingly difficult for small meat lockers to actually get a USDA meat inspector. The agency’s focus is on the big packer that slaughters thousands of animals a day, not the small town locker that might do twenty a week. 

I agree with a recent Nebraska editorial that said that “Nebraska should be to beef what Napa is to wine.” In fact, I think we are already there. Our  state has “the best in the world” of something, and we need to take every opportunity to promote and support that industry. Small town, state-inspected meat lockers in Iowa can sell beef and pork on-line and sell it across state lines. Small meat lockers in Nebraska cannot. The bottleneck created by the response to COVID showed us how a great market for beef quickly began to struggle because we lack slaughter capacity in Nebraska. We need laws that incentivize the opening of small town meat lockers in Nebraska. We need laws that open up these new markets for ranchers who make the most valuable thing we produce in Nebraska.  

We are the Beef State. It is long past the time when the Nebraska Legislature recognized this and did something about it. LB 235 will be heard in the Agriculture Committee Tuesday, the 2nd of February.

The first session of the 107th Nebraska Legislature convened on January 6th while our society continues to cope with the Chinese virus. I prefer to devote this weekly column to issues important to my legislative district. This week however, I think it is important I pass on some important changes to the legislative procedure that have happened because of the virus.

On January 25, the Legislature will commence public committee hearings. Public committee hearings are one of the most important parts of our legislative process—a critical time in which Nebraska’s “second house” (the people) can be heard. To ensure that the committee hearings are as safe as we can make them, I want to pass along some information. Here are four ways that the process is changing this year:

1. Morning and afternoon hearings. In order to minimize the chances of having to suspend our session, the Legislature will have both morning and afternoon committee hearings rather than floor debate in the morning and committee hearings in the afternoon.

2. New modes of public input. The Legislature wants to help reduce the need for people to testify in person while still making their voices heard. The Legislature has developed a process for “written submitted testimony.” During the 2021 session an individual may hand deliver the morning of the hearing their testimony which will be provided to the committee members during the public hearing. This will allow someone who has health concerns to limit their exposure to others by not having to sit in the hearing room for an extended period of time.

The option of submitting a position letter for the hearing record via email is still available. However, the deadline for submitting these letters will be earlier: noon the day before, instead of five o’clock (Central time). Position letters should be submitted via email to new designated committee email addresses.

In addition, the Legislature has implemented a new feature allowing the online submission of comments on a bill at any stage of debate. These comments will be accessible by all Senators and staff to read. You can learn more about how to take advantage of these public input options at [https://nebraskalegislature.gov/committees/public-input.php].

3.  Limited physical space. To accommodate social distancing, seating in the hearing room is limited. And because of the restricted physical space caused by the ongoing HVAC renovation of the State Capitol, there will be no overflow rooms available.

4. Modified hearing protocols. Hearings will look and feel different. These include a number of procedures, including extra sanitization efforts, masks, and social distancing. This is a unique year with unique challenges. We look forward to doing the people’s work in the Legislature and appreciate your understanding of these modified procedures.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions, or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1101, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.

I have spent a lot of my life fighting for this country. The fact that the United States is a beacon of freedom in the world is what always made me proud to wear the uniform. We believe that people ought to be free. The right to keep and bear arms is one of the most sacred rights enshrined in our federal and state constitutions. 

The past twelve months have presented steady reminders of why this right is so important. More and more, people of all political stripes have decided to take responsibility for protecting themselves and their families. Month after month, 2020 set records for new gun sales. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, about 8.5 million people became first-time gun owners in 2020.

In Article I, Section 1, our Nebraska Constitution recognizes “the right to keep and bear arms for security or defense of self, family, home, and others, and for common lawful defense, hunting, recreational use, and all other lawful purposes, and such rights shall not be denied or infringed by the state or any subdivision thereof.”

This version of the constitutional language was placed there by voters not in some ancient time, but in 1988 by initiative measure 403. Unfortunately, many of my colleagues in the Legislature have been reluctant to fully honor this promise. Because of that, state law prohibits most people from carrying defensive weapons concealed. 

To carry a concealed handgun legally, folks have to pay hundreds of dollars for a required course and permit application fee. In my first year in office, I introduced LB 502 to make Nebraska a “constitutional carry” state. That bill was shot down by anti-gun senators. The same year, Senator Mike Hilgers introduced his LB 68, to end the patchwork of local gun control measures that are layered on top of state and federal law. Despite heroic efforts by Senator Hilgers, that bill died on Select File, mostly because of urban senators who claimed that the bill violated the principle of local control. 

During floor debate on LB 68, anti-gun Senator Adam Morfeld stood on the floor and said, “I am in support of responsible policy that allows for local control to react to the varying circumstances of their locality or city or county. […] Maintaining that local control is critical because the reality in Ainsworth is a lot different than the reality in north Lincoln or north Omaha[.]”

On Day 4 of the 2021 legislative session, I introduced Legislative Bill 236. It proposes more local control, and recognizes that many counties in Nebraska have taken our gun rights more seriously than state lawmakers. In 2020, nearly a dozen Nebraska counties, most of them rural, passed “Second Amendment Sanctuary County” resolutions. I appreciate that these county officials are standing up and declaring that they will honor their duty to uphold our God-given, constitutionally recognized rights. LB 236 would give counties the power to declare that permitless carry of concealed weapons is lawful in their jurisdictions for anyone who is not a felon or otherwise prohibited from possessing weapons. I do not believe Nebraskans ought to have to pay hundreds of dollars to exercise a constitutional right. If LB 236 is passed into law, I believe that rural Nebraska counties will lead the way and show our more timid urban neighbors that freedom is the best policy.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions, or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1101, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.

I was disappointed to learn recently the Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) has decided to greatly expand its spending on “renewable” energy. NPPD and Monolith have entered into an agreement that outlines Monolith’s plan to buy two million megawatt hours (MWh) of renewable power from NPPD. Most of this will come from wind energy. 

“The approximately two million megawatt-hours of generation would create a sufficient number of renewable energy credits (RECs) to meet 100 percent of Monolith’s average annual energy usage and meet their environmental and sustainability goals,” said NPPD’s president and CEO, Tom Kent.

Just a couple years ago, Mr. Tom Kent and NPPD’s chief legal counsel sat in my office and told me they had no plans to expand their “renewable portfolio” and what few wind turbines and solar facilities they had were all they wanted. It is clear something has changed, or perhaps nothing changed and this was their intent all along.

NPPD has made a decision to enter into an agreement with a company that is driving further expansion of wind energy in Nebraska. To supply two million megawatt hours (MWh) of “renewable” power will require the construction of hundreds of the newest, biggest wind turbines and scores of new power lines. When the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, where will NPPD get the “renewable” power this agreement requires them to deliver? Will they buy it off the grid? How much will that cost ratepayers? How many years is this power purchase agreement for? How many citizens will be forced to be neighbors to an industrial wind energy facility because of this? Where will these be built? How many angry neighbors at county board meetings will this cause? 

Wind energy rips apart the fabric of Nebraska communities. It makes bitter enemies out of families that have been neighbors for generations. I have seen this sad scenario played out across my legislative district, and around the state many times. It is wrong-headed for the State of Nebraska to promote energy policies that rely on erratic and unreliable generators of electricity. There are many ways to reduce CO2 emissions for far less than building windmills and solar farms. If our State’s energy policy is going to drive a wedge between neighbors, and cost ratepayers more, it should at least make sense. 

Please contact my office with any comments, questions, or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1101, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.

Senator Tom Brewer
43rd District
7-10-2020

The recent decision by the federal court to put a halt to Nebraska Public Power District’s (NPPD) R-Project high voltage power line continues to be in the news. The President and CEO of NPPD, Mr. Tom Kent, was quoted in the North Platte paper the other day with respect to the R-Project power line. He said, “Nothing’s changed from a factual basis to change our decision at this point.”

Speaking specifically to the route of the R Project, Mr. Kent also said, “From what we’ve seen, we’re in the best place from a utilities standpoint.” The article did not mention what would be considered the “best place” for this powerline from a citizen’s perspective.

The landowners’ eight-year struggle against this power line should have ended when the judge issued his ruling in this lawsuit. Given Mr. Kent’s comments to the newspaper, it is clear he intends to press on with this misguided project along the same bad route regardless. Unfortunately, NPPD can make decisions and do things the people of Nebraska have no effective recourse against. The only check the law places on NPPD’s power is their elected board. Given the history of the public being ignored on this project, this remedy is clearly insufficient. The people need a much stronger say in the laws that govern our public power entities in Nebraska. The process we use to site power lines in this state is broken. The statutes empowering public electrical utilities to conduct this process is badly in need of updating. A lot has changed since we decided to be the only state in the union with 100 percent public-owned electrical utilities.

I have often wondered why we need these new transmission lines intended to hook up new production capacity when the state has over 900 megawatts of surplus electrical generation. We have enough excess electricity in Nebraska to power a second city of Lincoln. Transmission lines are built to move electricity long distances. There are no industrial generators of electricity in the vicinity of the R-Project, unless you consider all the wind energy facilities that will sprout like weeds if this power line is ever built. Not taking the impact of those projects into consideration even though they are bound to be built is a part of the reason the judge said that the permitting process failed to follow the law.

When Nebraskans have to pay a lawyer and haul government agencies into court in order to get them to finally listen to them, something is dreadfully wrong with the laws that govern that agency.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions, or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1101, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.

Senator Tom Brewer
43rd District
7-3-2020

I have traveled all over the world, and I believe America is the most multi-ethnic, most racially integrated, most colorblind country on Earth. We promise civil rights with the rule of law, and we rely on our courts to back up that promise. Our market economy makes economic mobility possible here in a way that is only a dream in many other nations. The idea the United States today is a horribly racist country has no relationship to truth or reality.

We fought a Civil War to end slavery. That war resulted in over 800,000 casualties. Adjusted for today’s population, that would be the equivalent of over eight million casualties. No nation on the face of the Earth has ever laid such a sacrifice upon the altar of human freedom.

In 1863 President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in the states in rebellion.

1865, President Lincoln led the effort to get the 13th Amendment passed in Congress, legally abolishing slavery throughout the United States.

Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and 1871, the Enforcement Act of 1870, the Force Act of 1871, the KKK Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1875. These were all efforts to advance the cause of integration.

In 1868, the 14th Amendment was ratified by the states. It guarantees due process and equal protection of all citizens, especially freed African slaves. In 1870, the 15th Amendment was passed to guarantee the right to vote for all citizens.

The Insurrection Act was amended in 1871 to allow use of the military to enforce, among other things, voting rights and desegregation. In 1871, Ulysses S. Grant sent a thousand soldiers to hunt down Klansmen in South Carolina and they captured 600 of them.

In 1948, President Truman issued an executive order to desegregate the US military.

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in the Brown versus Board of Education decision, nine to zero. It ended legal racial segregation in schools.

In 1957, President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, AR to protect nine black students entering Little Rock Central High School against the order of the governor. In 1959, he ordered the desegregation of the Washington, D.C. public schools.

In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act with an overwhelming majority of Republicans in the House and the Senate. It prohibits discrimination in voting, public accommodations, public facilities, public education, Federal assistance programs and employment.

In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act that prohibited denial or restriction of the right to vote. It forbids discriminatory voting practices nationwide.

This list just scratches the surface. I could fill every page of this newspaper with all the things Americans have done to make this the least racist country on Earth. We will continue to make our union “more perfect” as Americans have done throughout our history. We have always grown as a society by building people up, not tearing things down.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions, or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1101, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.

Senator Tom Brewer
43rd District
6-26-2020

When the virus hit, we had a cattle market. For better or worse, this market has worked in Nebraska since before we were a state. The large industrial meat packers turned out to be the critical point of failure in this market. When a large number of their employees turned up sick with the virus, the plants closed or severely reduced production. When that happened, ranchers no longer had a market to sell their crop. I do not think it can be overstated the amount of stress and despair this caused thousands of family farms and ranches around the state. Nothing like this has ever happened in living memory. Helping the number one industry in Nebraska simply must be our top priority.

Ranchers in the Sandhills are very strong and resilient people. They are also very industrious entrepreneurs. When the traditional cattle market failed, they created a new one selling animals directly to the public. This isn’t a new idea, but it’s never been tried on this scale before. Unfortunately, they now face another bottleneck. The critical point of failure in this new market is the small town meat locker. These lockers quickly became overwhelmed and most people now cannot make an appointment to slaughter and process an animal until next spring. The uptick in demand is a good thing for these small businesses, but the ranchers still need a viable market to sell their crop and make a modest profit. The traditional cattle market will eventually come back, but it is still struggling to recover and will be for some time to come.

I want to help expand the capacity of small town meat lockers in Nebraska. Selling the most valuable thing we make in Nebraska should be safe and easy to do. There are a lot of different aspects to this problem. It is a small town economic development problem. There are workforce housing issues, and problems with expanding city services and infrastructure in small towns. It is a skilled labor problem. To my knowledge, we don’t even have a school that teaches the ancient art of butchering an animal here in the Beef State. This trade must be learned on the job at the employer’s expense. It’s a public policy problem. The federal laws concerning meat inspection have not been substantially updated since the 1960s. Our state law has been silent on this issue since the early 1970s when Nebraska did away with its state meat inspection program. It’s time to update the law.

Other rural states are currently taking action to address these problems, and help grow and protect this new direct-to-consumer beef market. There are a lot of ways we can make the retail sale of beef direct to the public much easier for a small town locker than it is now. Not only can it be easier, it can be safer and more profitable for the rancher and the locker. That is good for Nebraska.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions, or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1101, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.

Senator Tom Brewer
43rd District
6-19-2020

The people of Nebraska scored an incredible victory in federal court this week. District Court Judge William J. Martinez ruled against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) in a case concerning the “R-Project” high voltage powerline. This monstrosity was going to cut through the heart of Nebraska’s most beautiful and sensitive area in the Sandhills, but the judge’s decision in this case has put a stop to the project, hopefully for good.

The judge vacated NPPD’s permit from USFWS and sent the matter back to that federal agency. I expect an appeal is being discussed, so this is not 100 percent over. Regardless, an appeal of this decision or a new environmental impact study may take years to complete. I expect them to keep trying. If they do, we will keep fighting them.

When I first began campaigning for the legislature in 2016, hundreds of citizens from across the district raised concerns with me over this powerline. Helping stop it became a campaign pledge for me. We quickly learned the planning and decision-making on this project had happened years before I took office. Much could have been done to oppose or at least steer this project in a way that reduced citizen anger over it. My predecessor supported this project, and he took a position against the vast majority of the people that were going to be affected by it.

What I found particularly interesting in the Judge’s 116-page decision was the fact that nothing he said was a surprise. The basis for his argument will be very familiar to people who have been raising these issues for over eight years. I have raised these same issues in scores of discussions with NPPD. I have traveled to Denver and told the regional director of the USFWS these same points. I flew to Washington, D.C. and did the same with the Under Secretary of the Department of Interior. Countless citizens have sent letters and emails and attended public meetings all saying the same thing, yet we were ignored at every turn. But the judge listened.

This power line is the key ingredient in the plan to cover Nebraska with more industrial wind turbines. The judge clearly saw through this poorly camouflaged purpose, and sided with the people. He did so because the people were right on the law all along. I am so honored to represent people with this kind of grit. Their efforts are the most heroic example of citizen-led government I have ever seen. I hope this stands as an example people can take inspiration from. They remind me of one of my favorite quotes;

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent….” Calvin Coolidge.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions, or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1101, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.