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Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Ind. Law - Old issues find new life as amendments
"Old issues find new life as amendments: Opponents say bills are antienvironment, anticonsumer" is the headline to a story today in the Munster (NW Indiana) Times. Some quotes:
Lobbyists and lawmakers are crying foul now that two previously defeated proposals have been slipped into existing legislation.Consumer groups have opposed both bills. One would make the state water and air pollution regulations bow to federal standards, while another largely would deregulate telecommunications.
Senate Bill 298, originally a bill to regulate small business, has been amended to prohibit the state's air and water pollution control boards from setting rules more stringent than federal regulations. * * *
Also in the Senate, a proposal to reform telecommunications regulation found new life last week as an amendment to Senate Bill 381. The bill passed Monday, 74-22, and now moves on to a conference committee.
The deregulation proposal originally was in House Bill 1518 and became a casualty of a walkout by House Democrats March 1.
In a statement given in late March, SBC Indiana President George S. Fleetwood said Indiana's telecommunications laws had not been updated in nearly 20 years, and that deregulation could "spark a rebirth of broadband investment and innovation."
One concern of the original deregulatory proposal was that customers in some rural areas would not have provider choices. Fleetwood said the new version of the regulatory reform law includes a test that would allow regulators to deem markets competitive before relaxing pricing regulations for telecom providers.
Grant Smith, executive director of Citizens Action Coalition, said the bill was nothing more than an attempt to generate revenue. With the recent acquisition of AT&T by SBC Communications Inc., "We're not seeing competition, we're seeing consolidation," he said.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 13, 2005 12:45 PM
Posted to Indiana Law