Latest news with #IfYouGiveaMouseaCookie
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Supreme Court changes the game on federal environmental reviews
Getting federal approval for permits to build bridges, wind farms, highways and other major infrastructure projects has long been a complicated and time-consuming process. Despite growing calls from both parties for Congress and federal agencies to reform that process, there had been few significant revisions – until now. In one fell swoop, the U.S. Supreme Court has changed a big part of the game. Whether the effects are good or bad depends on the viewer's perspective. Either way, there is a new interpretation in place for the law that is the centerpiece of the debate about permitting – the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, known as NEPA. NEPA requires federal agencies to document and describe the environmental effects of any proposed action, including construction of oil pipelines, renewable energy and other infrastructure projects. Only after completing that work can the agency make a final decision to approve or deny the project. These reports must evaluate direct effects, such as the destruction of habitat to make way for a new highway, and indirect effects, such as the air pollution from cars using the highway after it is built. Decades of litigation about the scope of indirect effects have widened the required evaluation. As I explain it to my students, that logical and legal progression is reminiscent of the popular children's book 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,' in which granting a request for a cookie triggers a seemingly endless series of further requests – for a glass of milk, a napkin and so on. For the highway example, the arguments went, even if the agency properly assessed the pollution from the cars, it also had to consider the new subdivisions, malls and jobs the new highway foreseeably could induce. The challenge for federal agencies was knowing how much of that potentially limitless series of indirect effects courts would require them to evaluate. In recent litigation, the question in particular has been how broad a range of effects on and from climate change could be linked to any one specific project and therefore require evaluation. With the court's ruling, federal agencies' days of uncertainty are over. On May 29, 2025, the Supreme Court – minus Justice Neil Gorsuch, who had recused himself – decided the case of Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, the first major NEPA dispute before the court in 20 years. At issue was an 85-mile rail line a group of developers proposed to build in Utah to connect oil wells to the interstate rail network and from there transport waxy crude oil to refineries in Louisiana, Texas and elsewhere. The federal Surface Transportation Board reviewed the environmental effects and approved the required license in 2021. The report was 637 pages long, with more than 3,000 pages of appendices containing additional information. It acknowledged but did not give a detailed assessment of the indirect 'upstream' effects of constructing the rail line – such as spurring new oil drilling – and the indirect 'downstream' effects of the ultimate use of the waxy oil in places as far flung as Louisiana. In February 2022, Eagle County, Colorado, through which trains coming from the new railway would pass, along with the Center for Biological Diversity appealed that decision in federal court, arguing that the board had failed to properly explain why it did not assess those effects. Therefore, the county argued, the report was incomplete and the board license should be vacated. In August 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed and held that the agency had failed to adequately explain why it could not employ 'some degree of forecasting' to identify those impacts and that the board could prevent those effects by exercising its authority to deny the license. The railway developers appealed to the Supreme Court, asking whether NEPA requires a federal agency to look beyond the action being proposed to evalutate indirect effects outside its own jurisdiction. Writing for a five-justice majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh delivered a ringing, table-pounding lecture about courts run amok. Kavanaugh did not stop to provide specific support for each admonition, describing NEPA as a 'legislative acorn' that has 'grown over the years into a judicial oak that has hindered infrastructure development.' He bemoaned the 'delay upon delay' NEPA imposes on projects as so complicated that it bordered 'on the Kafkaesque.' In his view, 'NEPA has transformed from a modest procedural requirement into a blunt and haphazard tool employed by project opponents.' He called for 'a course correction … to bring judicial review under NEPA back in line with the statutory text and common sense.' His opinion reset the course in three ways. First, despite the Supreme Court having recently reduced the deference courts must give to federal agency decisions in other contexts, Kavanaugh wrote that courts should give agencies strong deference when reviewing an agency's NEPA effects analyses. Because these assessments are 'fact-dependent, context-specific, and policy-laden choices about the depth and breadth of its inquiry … (c)ourts should afford substantial deference and should not micromanage those agency choices so long as they fall within a broad zone of reasonableness.' Second, Kavanaugh crafted a new rule saying that the review of one project did not need to consider the potential indirect effects of other related projects it could foreseeably induce, such as the rail line encouraging more drilling for oil. This limitation is especially relevant, Kavanaugh emphasized, when the effects are from projects over which the reviewing agency does not have jurisdiction. That applied in this case, because the board does not regulate oil wells or oil drilling. And third, Kavanaugh created something like a 'no harm – no foul' rule, under which 'even if an (environmental impact statement) falls short in some respects, that deficiency may not necessarily require a court to vacate the agency's ultimate approval of a project.' The strong implication is that courts should not overturn an agency decision unless its NEPA assessment has a serious flaw. The upshot for the project at hand was that the Supreme Court deferred to the board's decision that it could not reliably predict the rail line's effects on oil drilling or use of the oil transported. And the fact that the agency had no regulatory power over those separate issues reinforced the idea that those concerns were outside the scope of the board's required review. Although Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote that she would have reached the same end result and upheld the agency permit, her proposed test is far narrower. By her reading, the federal law creating the Surface Transportation Board restricted it from considering the broader indirect effects of the rail line. But her finding would be relevant only for any federal agencies whose governing statutes were similarly restrictive. By contrast, Kavanaugh's 'course correction' applies to judicial review of NEPA findings for all federal agencies. Though the full effects remain to be seen, this decision significantly changes the legal landscape of environmental reviews of major projects. Agencies will have more latitude to shorten the causal chain of indirect effects they consider – and to exclude them entirely if they flow from separate projects beyond the agency's regulatory control. Now, for example, if a federal agency is considering an application to build a new natural gas power plant, the review must still include its direct greenhouse gas emissions and their effects on the climate. But emissions that could result from additional gas extraction and transportation projects to fuel the power plant, and any climate effects from whatever the produced electricity is used for, are now clearly outside the agency's required review. And if the agency voluntarily decided to consider any of those effects, courts would have to defer to its analysis, and any minor deficiencies would be inconsequential. That is a far cry from how the legal structure around the National Environmental Policy Act has worked for decades. For lawyers, industry, advocacy groups and the courts, environmental review after the Eagle County decision is not just a new ballgame; it is a new sport. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: J.B. Ruhl, Vanderbilt University Read more: Why the federal government must act cautiously on fast-tracking project approvals Will faster federal reviews speed up the clean energy shift? Two legal scholars explain what the National Environmental Policy Act does and doesn't do Supreme Court could narrow the scope of federal environmental reviews, with less consideration of how projects would contribute to climate change J.B. Ruhl does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The children's book that explains the Trump White House
If you have kids or if you've been a kid yourself recently, you've probably heard of the famous children's book 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.' It's the cautionary tale about how ceding a trifle of something — such as a cookie — to a mouse will only lead to more demands and expectations, each harder to satisfy than the last. Perhaps when Donald Trump read this book to a group of children for a photo-op as a private citizen back in 2003, he inverted its original lesson. Rather than heeding the caution the book imposes on the reader about the slippery slope of capitulation, he may have interpreted the mouse's journey as aspirational — a blueprint for expanding his power that he is now applying to our entire system of governance. These days, Trump is getting offered much bigger rewards than cookies, and the demands are growing broader and more unfeasible. We've seen this unfold recently as Trump bent Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to his will. Maybe Bezos didn't see much potential for harm when he allegedly prevented The Washington Post's editorial board from endorsing then-Vice President Kamala Harris for president, or donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund and then attended the actual event with a prime spot. That was roughly 100 days ago, a period of time in which Business Insider estimates Bezos has lost $36 billion. You would think a poor return on investment would be grounds for getting out of a deal with Trump, but think again. Just this week, the White House fumed at the mere idea that Amazon might be considering listing import charges, even just on one of its imprint stores, Amazon Haul. Worried this would highlight the effects of Trump's tariffs, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the idea, 'a hostile and political act by Amazon.' Within hours, and after a phone call between Trump and Bezos, a spokesperson for Amazon not only said the idea would never happen, but insisted it was never going to be implemented in the first place. Trump later praised the 'very nice' Bezos after he 'solved the problem very quickly.' Bezos managed to mollify the president for now, but potentially at the cost of his investors' good graces and the trust of his customers. Bezos isn't the only one being rolled by the White House. Trump has managed to strong-arm the nation's top law firms for representing people and groups he sees as his political enemies. After threats of suffocating executive orders, law firms such as Paul Weiss agreed to pony up hundreds of millions of dollars in pro bono work to his pet causes and allies. So we shouldn't be surprised that Trump is now demanding more of them, according to The New York Times. Even the very people elected, in part, for their opposition to Trump's power grabs are showing signs of capitulation. Fresh off a humiliating impromptu photo-op with Trump in the Oval Office, Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer found herself this week onstage with Trump, who apparently surprised her by calling on her to speak. Make no mistake, Whitmer's work with the administration did lead to funding for an air base in her state, but the capitulation may negatively impact her political future and threatens to delegitimize the very real threat Trump poses to democracy. 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie' ends with our mouse friend — having been granted everything from nail scissors, to crayons, to bedtime stories and more — looking at a refrigerator, which reminds him that he's thirsty, and he requests a glass of milk. 'He's going to want a cookie to go with it,' the book warns, acknowledging that the never-ending cycle of demands will start all over again. Now, to be fair, not everyone is bending the knee to Trump, however. Some, such as Harvard University, the Perkins Coie and WilmerHale law firms and everyday Americans, are standing up to him. But if we want to stop that hamster wheel of capitulation, it will take much more than patches of scattered opposition to slow Trump's authoritarian tendencies. It will take a resounding, united 'No' to every Trump demand for more cookies ... and maybe a kindergarten level of reading comprehension. For more thought-provoking insights from Michael Steele, Alicia Menendez and Symone Sanders-Townsend, watch 'The Weeknight' every Monday-Friday at 7 p.m. ET starting May 5th on MSNBC. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Winchester community members step into the spotlight for a ‘magical' night of plays
WINCHESTER, Ky. (FOX 56) — As Stephen Bradley Lane got ready to hit the stage for his performance at the Leeds Center for the Arts on Thursday night, he was excited, to say the least. 'This play is going to be a wonderful performance. It was wonderful last year; it's even going to be better tonight,' said Lane. He is a member of STRIDE, a residential day program for people with disabilities. For the second year in a row, STRIDE partnered with the Leeds Youth Board for Magical Strides. 'When you're around the people at Stride and you're working on something like this, like, it's just the happiest, most supportive environment ever. And I think that both parties really get a lot out of it,' said Jacob Ernst, supervisor of the Leeds Youth Board. This year's Magical Strides event brought classic children's books to life in their own way, like 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie' and 'Where the Wild Things Are.' Read more of the latest Lexington & central Kentucky news Plus, some musical performances like 'Under the Sea' from The Little Mermaid and 'We're All in This Together' from High School Musical. After weeks of hard work, there was a lot for these performers to look forward to. 'Number one would be being on TV just talking about this program and talking about the play,' said Lane. Well, maybe something a little more important. 'Number two would just be being around my youth group and STRIDE friends,' he said. 'All the work we put in, how much confidence, how it's strong. And I think we can do the best that I and Nikki and Grace can do,' said Hayden Arnold while near his friends, Grace and Nikki. Mt. Sterling arts center has funding pulled by DOGE Winchester community members step into the spotlight for a 'magical' night of plays Lexington fashion designer adds his touch to tariff discussion 'I'm excited rather than nervous. I just love doing this. I love the people. I love all my friends,' Leeds Youth Board's President Trent Conboy-Holden told FOX 56. The friendships within the cast spoke volumes, showing that it is not hard to share the spotlight when you've got friends by your side. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Little Bear,' 'Arthur' and 'Clifford' are back: Why more parents are turning on 'gentle TV' shows from the '90s, '00s
Scour social media pages, and you'll find moms and dads recommending shows like Little Bear, Arthur and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie to show kids. These programs, which first aired in the 1990s or early '00s, are making a comeback as juggernaut children's shows like CoComelon and Paw Patrol take over living rooms across the country. Looking for a mix of 'low-stimulation' and familiar shows that resonated with them as children, some parents are skipping the flashy colors, quick cuts and brash music that often characterizes newer programming, instead opting for what's been referred to as 'gentle TV' — shows that offer slower pacing, calmer sounds and colors that are more muted than maximalist. 'What I've noticed is that in the last 10 years, a lot of preschool shows have become sort of harder-edged and are more frenetic again,' Michael Hirsh, the creator and producer of shows including Little Bear, Franklin and Max & Ruby, told Yahoo Entertainment. There's a need for parents of preschool children to find programs that are 'gentle and calming, because there is so much noise out there,' he explained. That's where older shows fit right in. Morgan Eriquezzo, a speech-language pathologist and mother of two, agrees. 'When we were [not limiting screen time or monitoring shows] and I didn't know any better, I noticed a lot of tantrumming, I guess, and a lot of emotional outbursts,' Eriquezzo said of her 5-year-old daughter. In addition to the amount of screen time her children were clocking, the Bremen, Ga., mom also started evaluating and comparing the shows they were watching. 'CoComelon, for example, the screen never stops moving if you watch it. It's like a consistent movement, so it lights up something in a child's brain,' she said. 'It's constantly stimulating over and over and over again, and it never lets the mind rest on one scene.' 'We dedicate substantial care and resources to ensure all of our content, including CoComelon, is as enriching as it is entertaining. We work closely with experts in childhood development to inform our content development choices,' a spokesperson from Moonbug, which owns CoComelon, told Yahoo Entertainment. Referring to the animated kids' program on Netflix and YouTube as a 'high-stimulation' show, she then started looking for shows that featured scenes that lingered for at least four seconds so that her daughter 'has a chance to latch on to that scene and understand.' Next, Eriquezzo and her husband, who also have a 2-year-old daughter, started experimenting. 'I'm not kidding, on days that [our eldest daughter] would watch the [high-stimulation] shows, she would be so emotional. It was very whiny, crying, couldn't express herself, which looking back now, I look at it, she was just overstimulated and didn't know what to do,' Eriquezzo said. 'Now it's like a night-and-day difference. I mean, it's like a different kid.' Eriquezzo is one of many parents who have opted to show their young kids more gentle TV shows when they have screen time. 'One thing we've really seen is this increased awareness of the impacts of things like content and pacing of programs on kids themselves,' John Mootz, a representative from Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development, told Yahoo Entertainment, 'and when I say awareness, I mean awareness by parents, that not all content is created equal.' While the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends about an hour of screen time per day for kids ages 2 to 5, their focus is really on 'quality' over 'quantity.' Hirsh, who also wrote Animation Nation: How We Built a Cartoon Empire, attributes qualities like a show's color scheme and choice of music and sound in addition to pacing that characterize a show as gentle or low-stimulation. 'For example, Little Bear has music that's original but inspired by Schubert, so it's a very calming, classic music sort of sound,' he said. 'The storytelling unfolds at a slower pace so that it's easier for the child to get involved, relate to it and feel comfortable with it, rather than just being pushed along on a great roller-coaster ride.' Eriquezzo, along with other parents on social media, recommended Little Bear, a program that originally ran from 1995 to 2003, as a go-to show for her kids. Adapted by Hirsh from the books by Else Holmelund Minarik and Maurice Sendak, the series is about a young bear cub and his forest friends. Focusing on qualities like 'friendships and family themes' and avoiding overly complicated problem-solving, the shows offer a calmer option for kids, those parents say. 'A kid can only attend to so many things, there's a lot of cognitive load that happens when a scene switches, or there's a lot happening or it's a really convoluted storyline,' Mootz explained. 'The general recommendations are removing as much of that as possible so that the kid can attend to what the main messages are, what the main storylines are and what the main lessons are is really key when identifying these more age-appropriate, slower-paced, what you call gentle programming.' For Lauren Tuck, Yahoo's lifestyle editor and a Los Angeles mom of two, tuning in to gentle TV happened by accident, after her father set up her new TV to automatically go to PBS. 'So then my [3-year-old] daughter became obsessed with PBS, and she has typically been someone who's really into very inappropriate TV shows for her age,' Tuck said, referring to programs that are 'annoying and overstimulating.' 'She'll watch Sesame Street when it's on, which is great,' said Tuck, who also has a 15-month-old son. 'She also has been watching a show called Super Why! which is from the early 2000s and it's teaching kids how to read. And she's literally learning how to read.' In addition to Super Why! Tuck's daughter also watches Little Bear, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood and Pinkalicious, the last of which asks questions like ''How have you helped your mom today?' And then she'll weirdly help me all day,' Tuck said. 'What it comes down to for us is that we're really focused on what makes content age-appropriate, developmentally appropriate for kids and really is going to help them learn the best,' Sara DeWitt, senior vice president and general manager of PBS Kids, told Yahoo Entertainment. 'For young preschoolers, the pacing is absolutely part of that. It's really about how are kids able to take in information and pay attention to a story, and how do we guide them through it in a way that's really going to have the impact that we want it to have.' In addition to the old-school programs, parents across social media have also recommended modern shows including Bluey (Disney+), Puffin Rock (Prime Video), Tumble Leaf (Prime Video) and Pocoyo (Prime Video). That said, when it comes to shows like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (2015-2021) and Clifford the Big Red Dog, nostalgia also plays a role in parents choosing these programs for their kids. 'I grew up watching Clifford,' Eriquezzo said, which originally aired a season in 1988 and from 2000 to 2003. 'So that one is also really, really cute to see as an adult.' Whether old-school or brand-new, these shows are arguably more soothing for kids than ones that feature quick scene cuts, bold colors, louder sounds and bigger emotions. 'You hear a lot about like bright colors and lots of noises as being something that really draws kids in. And that may be the case for older kids, and that's certainly what we saw [in our research],' said DeWitt, who also oversees other recommended and similarly low-stimulation shows like Elinor Wonders Why and Carl the Collector. 'For younger kids, that was overwhelming.' She also said that 'when you think about what's going to really land with kids, what they're really going to be able to comprehend, sometimes slower is the way that it's going to really get through.' DeWitt added: 'We hear from parents that some of our shows can kind of help their kids calm down.' For Eriquezzo, choosing so-called gentle TV (and dialing back screen time to once a week) has made a noticeable difference in her home. 'I will say that just the tone of the whole house is better when we watch something that's more slow-paced,' she said. While more parents are highlighting gentle TV shows, Hirsh admits that families will always want a mix of programming. 'There are moments when kids want something that's more engaging. And sometimes there's something that, like Magic School Bus, that's more educational. So the shows can have different functions,' he said. 'The kids want their sugar and their candy too. So there's always going to be a demand for something that's just pure fun, right?'
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Louisville weakens laws on lead exposure, rental registries amid pressure from state GOP
Louisville lawmakers and city staff spent years creating two ordinances aimed at making rental housing safer for tenants. Both have been eroded in a matter of weeks. Thursday night, Louisville Metro Council voted to repeal and rewrite Louisville's lead protections and eliminate some of Louisville's rental registry regulations — submitting to pressure from Republicans in Kentucky's state legislature who threatened to dismantle the regulations unless local lawmakers made significant changes. House Bill 173, sponsored by Rep. Ryan Dotson, R-Winchester, would prohibit any local government in Kentucky from adopting or enforcing a 'policy that creates or maintains a registry of landlords or residential rental properties for any purpose." The bill specifically challenges Louisville's regulations on lead hazards in rental properties and the city's rental registry. Louisville's changes to both sets of regulations "were in response to my friends in the state General Assembly including Representative Dotson and Representative Nemes," sponsor and council Republican Caucus Chair Anthony Piagentini said in a February newsletter. "They brought attention to how overreaching our existing laws are while allowing us the opportunity to fix the problem locally." His rewrite of protections against lead hazards in rental properties represents a weakening of existing regulations, reducing proactive measures to catch hazards before a child is poisoned and shifting responsibility for identifying lead hazards to city departments instead of property owners. And another ordinance from Piagentini will remove parts of Louisville's rental registry, also threatened by HB 173, which requires all owners of rental properties to register with the city. The registry, first approved in 2016, is meant to keep track of rental property owners and help city inspectors enforce property maintenance rules. It was strengthened in 2022 to include random inspections and to make the registry 'public-facing.' Tom FitzGerald spent decades lobbying for environmental protections in Frankfort with Kentucky Resources Council and is currently of counsel for the organization. He warned Metro Council of succumbing to pressure from the state. "There's a children's book, 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,' and it teaches us that if you give a mouse a cookie, the next thing they'll ask for is a glass of milk," he said. "If you give in to the preemption threat of House Bill 173, it's highly unlikely you will ever restore what you lose or repair the damage done." Despite impassioned and pointed speeches from advocates, lobbyists and fellow council members, Piagentini's rewrite of Louisville's lead hazard protections passed 17-8. His ordinance will replace more stringent regulations approved unanimously by the council in 2022. In past statements, Piagentini said his rewritten ordinance is designed to specifically address the "small minority of landlords who don't follow the law," and avoid burying well-intentioned landlords under a mountain of regulations and expenses. The city's execution of the previous ordinance — first implemented in December — has been "at best, substandard," he said during debate Thursday. Before the repealed and replaced protections, there were no laws mandating landlords proactively identify and address lead hazards in rental properties. In the absence of such protections, roughly 10,000 Louisville children have been found with elevated levels of lead in their blood since 2005. Thousands more cases have likely gone unnoticed due to gaps in testing and a lack of proactive lead hazard assessments. Seven Democrats and one independent council member voted against Piagentini's rewritten regulations. "You don't listen to the experts. You don't listen to the data. You don't listen to people with direct experience," Councilwoman Shameka Parrish-Wright, an opponent to the ordinances and sibling to a lead poisoning victim, told the sponsor. "You're listening to the pockets of people who will never experience this." Other Democrats, though, argued that approving Piagentini's ordinance was the best way to keep some protections in place, fearing the state law could wipe out all of Louisville's protections. Each case of childhood lead exposure represents the risk of lifelong, irreversible damage to the brain. The neurotoxin threatens cognitive development, decision-making ability, memory, learning and behavior. Exposure can lead to difficulty in school, worse test scores, higher costs for special education programs or, eventually, the justice system. Louisville's 2022 lead protections came decades after action by some other U.S. cities, leaving thousands of local children vulnerable to poisoning, The Courier Journal found in a 2023 investigation. Local real estate interests have fought to reduce protections for years, the reporting found, despite evidence of similar regulations' success in improving public health outcomes in cities such as Rochester, New York. The newly passed regulations provide for a less proactive approach to addressing lead hazards than the previous laws, relying on code enforcement officers to identify risks during inspections or on tenants to request an inspection, rather than requiring property owners to ensure older rental properties are free of lead hazards. Experts and advocates expect the weakened protections will result in more Louisville children exposed to the neurotoxin — particularly in the northwest corner of the county, where children are more than nine times as likely to be exposed to lead, by one estimate. 'We purport to be a civilized society, and we purport to be a society that has a certain level of morality,' FitzGerald said. 'We don't knowingly expose kids — our kids or other people's kids — to lifelong health hazards because we can't be bothered.' Metro Council approved several shifts to Louisville's rental registry — though not without last-minute changes to Piagentini's original proposal and frustration over the threat of preemption from the state. "As someone who's had to be in Frankfort lobbying, they're rushing this, and they're trying to make us make the first move," Parrish-Wright said. "This feels like a bully move." Piagentini said he already had concerns with some of the rental registry provisions, pointing out that he voted 'no' on strengthening them in 2022. "From a philosophical, high-level point of view, (both ordinances) were worded in a way that assumed everybody was guilty, and then you had to prove your innocence," he said. Piagentini's original ordinance eliminated random inspections, fees, the requirement for landlords to sign a sworn affidavit on the safety of their properties and language reaffirming a Kentucky state law that protects tenants from retaliation. After comments in a committee meeting from Councilman JP Lyninger, Piagentini added the language on tenants being protected from landlord retaliation back into the ordinance, saying he had "zero issue" with it, especially because it aligns with state law. Other council members successfully brought back some of the fees. In a showing of bipartisan support, councilmembers Markus Winkler and Kevin Kramer supported including one-time fees when property owners first register. Despite salvaging small pieces of the original ordinance, significant changes were passed including eliminating random inspections of rental units. The mandate for property owners to swear an affidavit that, to the best of their knowledge, all rental units were in compliance with city property rules, was also squashed. In a committee meeting, Piagentini said the affidavit 'had no impact on anything.' Some landlords have raised privacy concerns about the public-facing aspect to the rental registry, objecting to having their phone numbers or addresses published. Piagentini's ordinance aims to address some of these concerns, removing the physical address and phone number of the property owner if "the owner is not a corporation, partnership, or trust." Former council member Rick Blackwell pushed back against this idea, though, saying it is important for renters to be able to easily access their information. "It's a business," said Blackwell. "It's not a house anymore." However, some of the property owners' contact information will remain in the registry. The new legislation passed 21-4. With the original protections against childhood lead exposure in rental properties repealed and replaced, Louisville will now have different — and fewer — tools to prevent poisonings before they occur. The onus of catching lead in rental properties will now fall mostly to city staff at the Department of Codes and Regulations and the Department of Public Health and Wellness, removing much of the responsibility from property owners. It's unclear whether these city agencies have staff and funding to identify potential lead hazards in thousands of Jefferson County homes. Louisville's move to narrow protections for renters under threat of preemption joins a number of successful efforts by the General Assembly to erode the city's local control. In a caucus meeting Thursday, Democrats displayed internal struggle over whether to yield to Republicans, and debated whether state lawmakers could pass preemptive legislation against Louisville's regulations. "This has twisted my stomach in knots," said Councilman Andrew Owen. He appeared torn during debate and was ultimately among the Democrats who voted in favor. "I would rather have 50% instead of zero," said Councilwoman Donna Purvis, who consistently supported Piagentini's proposed changes as a means of salvaging some protections and local control. But numerous members in the council's left wing were holdouts on the changes — arguing Louisville should have forced Frankfort Republicans to move on their legislation first before relenting, and taken a more active position against the threat of preemption. As of Thursday, the state bill had not been heard in committee more than halfway through the legislative session. Lyninger said it was a "strategic mistake" for the Metro Council to amend these ordinances at Frankfort's behest, and pointed to how rare it is for state lawmakers to back off of preempting Louisville ordinances. "If I were in Republican leadership in Frankfort, I wouldn't be excited to be the party of lead poisoning children," Lyninger said. "I would much rather that the Louisville Metro Council took that plunge for me." Reach reporter Eleanor McCrary at EMcCrary@ or at @ellie_mccrary on X, formerly known as Twitter. Connor Giffin is an environmental reporter for The Courier Journal. Reach him directly at cgiffin@ or on X @byconnorgiffin. This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville weakens protections for renters amid state GOP pressure
