KY lawmakers push bills to fight COVID, spur job growth and ban state mask mandate
Kentucky lawmakers kept a fast pace in their second day of a special session Wednesday, moving ahead with committee votes on bills related to the COVID-19 pandemic and economic development.
Measures considered in committees included appropriating funds Kentucky received from the federal American Rescue Plan to fight the alarming coronavirus surge in the state, and sweetening incentives to lure investment projects worth more than $2 billion. The only bill not to receive majority committee approval was House Bill 1 before the House Education Committee, although that committee was scheduled to meet again Wednesday evening. The bill would nullify universal masking requirements in child care, pre-Kindergarten and K-12 settings.
The Senate will meet at 9 a.m. Thursday and the House at 10 a.m. to consider bills sent to the full chambers from the committees.
Statewide mask mandate
Members of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee approved Senate Bill 2 Wednesday afternoon in an 8-2 vote. Like House Bill 2, which received early approval in committee on Tuesday, it would bar a statewide mask mandate in Kentucky until June of 2023, leaving the decision instead up to local governments and businesses.
Additionally, the bill requires the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to assist local health care providers in setting up regional monoclonal antibody treatment centers for people recently diagnosed with COVID-19. Many of the state’s acute care hospitals already provide this treatment option and roughly 10% of people who test positive receive it.
But lawmakers sparred with Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack and Cabinet Secretary Eric Friedlander over why the state hasn’t more aggressively worked to make this treatment available.
“We haven’t kept up with the times,” Chairman Ralph Alvarado, R-Winchester, told the pair, referencing other states like Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has set up mass Regeneron clinics to inject people who’ve tested positive with manufactured antibodies in an effort to stave off a severe infection and potential hospitalization.
In addition to the antibody treatment already being provided, Beshear has requested the Federal Emergency Management Agency provide Kentucky with six additional teams to administer this therapy — a request that has yet to be granted, Stack said.
The bill also codifies that residents in long-term care facilities be allowed one “essential compassionate care visitor,” who can visit them in person even if facilities limit visitation as community spread worsens across Kentucky. It also outlines a “media strategy” to publicize the voices of community leaders on the dangers of the virus and the importance of the vaccine — a subsection of the bill Senate President Robert Stivers said was drafted because Beshear and Stack have “desensitized” Kentuckians on these issues.
Like with House Bill 2, this bill removes the option of a statewide mask mandate in Kentucky — a measure supported by most Republicans, who emphasize the need for local control, even if that control means school districts and local governments make decisions that counteract public health guidance.
“As a legislature, we have decided to forgo one potential option for control of disease spread. What is the justification of this?” asked Sen. Karen Berg, D-Louisville, who voted against the bill. “Why would you want to tie your arm behind your back like that?”
Stivers said the bill doesn’t preclude local entities from enacting and enforcing mask mandates, but any statewide measure would require intervention from the Republican-majority General Assembly.
Votes on the bill were along party lines, and though Republicans approved it, some said it didn’t go far enough.
“I don’t feel this bill is bold enough nor strong enough, but it’s better than walking away with nothing,” said Paducah Republican Sen. Danny Carroll.
Federal dollars to fight COVID-19
The House and Senate budget committees approved House Bill 3 and Senate Bill 3 to appropriate about $69 million from the federal American Rescue Act to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to fight COVID-19.
Earmarks for the money include more testing for COVID-19, assisting and providing more monoclonal antibody treatment with the goal of having at least one qualified treatment center in each of the state’s 15 area development districts, providing for “Test and Stay” coronavirus testing at schools to ensure students are able to continue attending school in person instead of entering quarantine when students potentially exposed to COVID-19 have no symptoms and continue to test negative.
The legislation requires the cabinet to submit to the legislature by Dec. 15, 2021, a report of all the expenditures.
Economic development incentives
House and Senate committees voted without opposition on Wednesday to send a $410 million economic development incentives package to their respective chambers for floor votes.
House Bill 5 and Senate Bill 5 would transfer a large sum from the state’s $1.9 billion “rainy day” budget reserve trust fund to the Economic Development Cabinet for use attracting companies willing to invest at least $2 billion.
The bills include $350 million in forgivable state loans, $50 million in worker training and $10.6 million to pay off a $1,550-acre site the state acquired for industrial recruitment at the Interstate 65 exit in the Glendale community in Hardin County.
Rocky Adkins, an aide to Gov. Andy Beshear, told lawmakers that Kentucky is hearing from multiple companies with an interest not only in the Glendale site but also other locations around the state. But other states are making bids for those same companies, which is why Kentucky needs to have better incentives, Adkins said.
“This is about us competing in the global economy. It’s about us having a tool in the toolbox to be able to meet the competition we see at the doorstep,” Adkins told the House panel.
However, some critics on Wednesday said lawmakers should not throw so much public money at private corporations. They recalled the General Assembly’s controversial 2017 decision to buy $15 million in stock in an unnamed company — later identified as Braidy Industries — for an aluminum mill near Ashland that never was built.
“Given the choice between respecting Kentucky’s taxpayers or raiding the rainy day fund for another dose of corporate welfare, Frankfort appears poised to choose another huge giveaway to big business,” The Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, a conservative advocacy group, said in a statement.
Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, said he co-sponsored the legislation because “I have seen what incentives like this can do for Kentucky.”
He noted the success of the Toyota manufacturing plant in Scott County and how its workforce draws from 70 Kentucky counties.
Herald-Leader staff writer Jack Brammer contributed to this article.
