MORGANTOWN – The House of Delegates passed a bill on Tuesday that members hope will bring more manufacturing to the state. The Senate approved one to promote local board of education transparency.
HB 4084 is the recycling bill. It allows allow advanced recycling facilities to be developed to convert a variety of used plastics that are now considered solid waste into new raw materials to make new products. Such materials would no longer be considered solid waste and the recycling plants would not be governed by solid waste management regulations.
The bill says an advanced recycling facility means a facility that receives, stores and converts post-use polymers and recovered feedstocks using advanced recycling. An advanced recycling facility is a manufacturing facility, not a solid waste facility.
Lead sponsor Mark Zatezalo, R-Hancock, reminded members that Nucor, bringing a steel mill to Mason County, works in recycled metals.
“Any time we can take material that we have that would normally go to a landfill and recycle it, I consider that a good thing,” he said. This bill does that for plastics. It will increase recycling and decrease waste.
It passed 93-0 and goes to the Senate.
Senate bills
SB 493 requires all county school board meetings to be open to the public in person and via audio and video broadcast live via a link on the board website. It also requires the boards to archive the audio and video for later public access via a website link.
In addition, it requires a board to make reasonable rules for attendance and presentations when there is insufficient room for all who wish to attend. All speakers and delegations must be treated equally and every person who wishes to speak must be granted time in keeping with the procedures adopted under this requirement.
Minority Leader Stephen Baldwin, D-Greenbrier, offered an amendment to subject charter schools and private, parochial and church schools to the same requirements.
Education chair Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, objected on technical grounds, saying Baldwin’s amendment added a new code section to the bill that’s not in the original. After a huddle with all the parties at the president’s dais, Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, agreed and ruled the amendment not germane, so it was not voted on.
Baldwin joined the majority in approving the bill: It passed 34-0 and goes to the House.
The Senate also unanimously approved HB 4062, which lifts the requirement for the commissioner of the Division of Highways to live in Charleston. It goes back to the House for amendment concurrence.
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