Update, 5/23, 2:24pm: Today Sen. Sullivan’s bill gets its second reading.  The compromise bill still has the votes to pass.

Update, 5/19, 11:45am: It is pretty clear that the bill will pass, it has two more rounds of voting, but clearly has the votes.  Sen. Avery summed it up best today “Is this the best we can do or what we are wiling to do?” Listening to the debate, Senators need to start listening to Nebraskans and not TransCanada. There is so much misinformation and lack of education. We did our best to give concrete information to all Senators, but will continue to do our very best to give Senators information on the other side of this issue so we can get further bills passed to protect our land and water.

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This morning, our State Senators will debate Sen. Sullivan’s amended bill that will require oil pipeline companies to re-plant vegitation they disturb during construction.  We are happy at least one bill will be debated on oil pipelines this session.

However, for this bill to be the only bill that made it out of the Natural Resources Committee sends a very loud and clear message to every landowner and citzien following this issue–our elected officials are not serious about protecting our land, water and landowners from a foreign company.

You can watch the debate on NET’s website: http://www.netnebraska.org/publicmedia/capitol.html (just click on “main legistlative chamber”)

The legislative day began at 9am.  According to today’s agenda, there are several bills that will have final readings or will be voted through Select File before LB 629 is debated.  We’ll be live tweeting the pipeline debate @BoldNebraska when it begins.  You can join in the conversation by using the tag #neleg!

Don’t forget to call your state senator and tell him/her to support this small step in the huge leaps we need to make in order to protect our land and water.