Coming Up in the GA General Assembly...

Some of what's being heard in the General Assembly this coming week...

The House Energy Subcommittee will hold hearings on a proposed resolution, which if approved, will be sent to President Obama urging him to come up with an energy plan to reduce the nation's foreign oil dependence by at least 30 percent in the next decade.

State House lawmakers will also hold hearings on a measure allowing the state to conduct an inventory of oil and natural gas off Georgia’s coastal areas and to investigate the possibility of exploration and drilling.

And, later this week, the House Science & Technology Committee will hear from science, technology, engineering and math education experts. The goal is to try and increase the number of teacher in those subjects. In 2008, the Georgia Department of Education certified over 4,000 teachers to teach grades K-12. Only eight of those were certified chemistry instructors. Only three received their certifications in physics.

In the state Senate, the Senate Appropriations Committee will consider House Bill 118, Governor’s Perdue 2009 supplemental budget. The measure passed the house late last week by a vote of 168 to 5. With the state’s current revenue shortfall nearly 2 billion dollars, hundreds of millions in federal stimulus money have been figured into the nearly 19 billion dollar midyear budget to help cushion the blow of across the board spending cuts.

The Senate Appropriations committee will consider a measure splitting the state employee’s retiree health benefit fund into two separate funds. One to be named the Georgia State Retiree Health Benefit Fund. The other will be named the Georgia School Retiree Health Benefit Fund.

For a list of pending committee meetings in the Georgia General Assembly, visit: http://www.legis.state.ga.us.