With the holiday season now behind us, the 131st Legislature is officially underway. Cloture, the last day for legislators to submit bill titles, was December 30. The full list of 2,123 legislative requests (LRs) was recently released, revealing the first real preview of the session ahead.
The Office of the Revisor is now in the process of drafting language for each of these bill titles (LDs) and the Legislature has begun referencing these bills, as they become available, to their respective committees for public hearings and work sessions.
While this part of the session always feels slow, work will be flowing at a rapid pace before we know it, which is why the Council has relaunched our Friday morning policy calls. These calls, which are reserved for members, provide a valuable opportunity for member input and discussion that ultimately informs the positions we will take this session. If you’re a member and would like to participate in these weekly calls, please email Sue at adminassist@maineforest.org to be added to our list.
For those who are unable to participate in these calls, but would like to be informed of what is happening in Augusta, we will be sending weekly emails with a preview the weeks ahead. We also urge you to visit the Legislative Action section on our new website for the most up-to-date information. Here you will find important links to the Legislature, a full list of our positions with links to our testimony, our regulatory calendar and more. This session, we also plan to share our action alerts and testimonies on our Facebook page, so if you haven’t done so already, please head on over there to like and follow us.
As always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Pat