At yesterday?s House Water Resources Meeting, long time property rights advocate and outspoken opponent to the bill, Rep Mitch Gillespie, R-McDowell, followed up previous committee discussion with several amendments to try to fix some of the most egregious parts of the government?s attempted takeover of Alcoa, aka Senate Bill 967, Yadkin River Trust.  Rather than run all the amendments, it was suggested he roll them into a new proposed committee substitute, which he did.  The PCS was accepted by the committee.  Gillespie?s suggestions would have increased accountability and oversight, reined in some of the funding, limited the scope and reach of the bill and mitigated some of the negative impact.  During debate, Gillespie expressed concerns over what kind of precedent this sets and argued the state will eventually own all public utilities, if this keeps up.  He questioned the financial benefits to the state and said taxpayers don?t want to pay for this.  

Gillespie?s attempts to make a bad bill less bad, were rejected by the committee.  Even with improvements included in the PCS, it still wasn?t enough to make this a good idea. Gillespie was one of the 8 members voting no on the motion to refer the bill without prejudice (a procedural move that moves a bill along to the next committee).  The bill currently sits in Water Resources Committee and can be re-calendared and reconsidered at any time.  It is also scheduled to be heard in the House Public Utilities and House Finance Committees before it goes to the full House for a vote.

As Rick mentioned, those in favor of the bill, do not intend to give up and will continue to look for ways to revive it.  For now, it?s not dead but on life support.

By the way, the 8-6 vote yesterday was:

Voting NO:  
Kelly Alexander, D-Mecklenburg
Curtis Blackwell, R- Union
Mitch Gillespie, R McDowell
Bruce Goforth, R Buncombe
Grey Mills, R Iredell
Ruth Samuelson, R-Mecklenburg
Alice Underhill, D-Craven
Ray Warren, D-Alexander

Voting YES:
Lucy Allen, D-Franklin
Jamie Boles, R-Moore
Pryor Gibson, D Anson
Carolyn Justice, R- Pender
Cullie Tarleton, D- Watauga
Edith Warren, D ? Pitt

Absent:  Bill Owens, D-Pasquotank