Protest held against Kentucky waterway regulation rollback bill
FRANKFORT, Ky. (FOX 56) — This is the week for Kentucky lawmakers to get many of their priorities to the finish line. This means advocates are also ramping up their efforts to stop some bills in their tracks.
'I'm calling this a pop-up protest because it happened so fast,' Elaine Tanner said at a gathering of protesters on Monday.
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Just under a dozen environmental protesters met in downtown Pineville Monday to protest Senate Bill 89. It's the home of Sen. Scott Madon, who recently served as the city's mayor until a special election last fall and is sponsoring the bill.
'One has to question if the Cabinet even wants us to even mine coal in Kentucky,' Madon said as he presented the bill on the Senate floor last month.
Madon said the bill would reduce 'red tape' for coal mining and construction permits by legally redefining 'waters of the Commonwealth' with the federal definition of 'navigable waterways.'
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Protest held against Kentucky waterway regulation rollback bill
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The current definition is expansive, counting 'any and all rivers, streams, creeks, lakes, ponds, impounding reservoirs, springs, wells, marshes, and all other bodies of surface or underground water, natural or artificial.'
'We're dealing with protections of a point of entry. We have a point of entry. Someone puts something into a stream we can go find out real quick where it's at. We fought hard to get those protections in there,' Tanner said at Monday's protest.
Now these advocates fear that hard work could be lost. The bill has already passed the Senate and received two of the three required readings to pass the House. This protest was to rally a few more calls and emails in an effort to kill the bill. Its supporters. However, argue the language being defended is easily weaponized.
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'Maybe they don't like your politics may like the type of work you in. That's not what government does. That's not the Cabinet's job. That's what's become of the Cabinet. And that is why, after many years of frustration of trying to work with them, that something had to be done,' Sen. Brandon Smith (R-Hazard) said in support of the bill on the Senate floor.
The House committee the bill is assigned to meets regularly on Thursday.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Hortman used her position as speaker in 2023 to champion expanded protections for abortion rights, including legislation to solidify Minnesota's status as a refuge for patients from restrictive states who travel there to seek abortions — and to protect providers who serve them. Walz called her a 'formidable public servant, a fixture and a giant in Minnesota.' Hortman and her husband had two adult children. The initial autopsy reports from the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office gave their cause of death as 'multiple gunshot wounds.' The reports said Melissa Hortman died at the scene, while her husband was pronounced dead at the hospital. Hoffman, 60, was first elected in 2012 and is chair of the Senate Human Services Committee, which oversees one of the biggest parts of the state budget. He and his wife have one daughter. Boelter was appointed to the workforce development board in 2016 and reappointed in 2019 to a four-year term that expired in 2023, state records show. Corporate records show Boelter's wife filed to create a company called Praetorian Guard Security Services with the same Green Isle mailing address listed for the couple. Boelter's wife is listed as president and CEO and he is listed as director of security patrols on the company's website. The website says the company provides armed security for property and events and features a photo of an SUV painted in a two-tone black-and-silver pattern similar to a police vehicle. Another photo shows a man in black tactical gear with a military-style helmet and a ballistic vest. An online resume says Boelter is a security contractor who has worked in the Middle East and Africa, in addition to past managerial roles at companies in Minnesota. Around 6 a.m. Saturday, Boelter texted friends to say he had 'made some choices,' the Minnesota Star Tribune reported. In the messages, read to reporters by David Carlson, Boelter did not specify what he had done but said: 'I'm going to be gone for a while. 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In July 2024, Trump was grazed on the ear by one of a hail of bullets that killed a Trump supporter. Two months later a man with a rifle was discovered near the president's Florida golf course and arrested. Other incidents include a 2022 hammer attack on the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, in their San Francisco home and a 2020 plot by anti-government extremists to kidnap Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and start a civil war. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said he asked Capitol Police to 'immediately increase security' for Klobuchar and the other U.S. senator from Minnesota, Tina Smith. He also asked Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican, to hold a briefing on member security. Speaking Sunday on CNN's 'Inside Politics Sunday,' Smith said she personally felt safe and the thought of security details becoming the norm was unbearable. 'But I think we are at a tipping point right now when we see these kinds of personal threats. It gets worse, not better,' she said. 'I don't want to think that I need to have a personal security detail wherever I go.' Sullivan, Karnowski and Richer write for the Associated Press. Sullivan reported from Brooklyn Park, Karnowski from Minneapolis and Durkin Richer from Washington. AP writers Giovanna Dell'Orto in Champlin, Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, N.Y., Michael Biesecker in Washington and Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed to this report.
