We had planned to have a TLOTA press conference at the Capitol Monday but had to postpone it due to slowness in preparation and transmittal of the committee report to the Calendars Committee. Until the Calendars Committee receives and considers the committee report and sets CSSB 855 on the Major State House Calendar, we can not set the date for the press conference. We will send an e-mail to all announcing the time and date of the press conference as soon as we can. Best guess at this point is that we will be able to so Tuesday and that the press event at the Capitol will be Thursday or Friday.

By rule, house bills not adopted last week are now dead, although some will get attached to related bills by amendment. We have eliminated from our weekly report those house bills that we were tracking that we were not adopted as well as several senate bills that clearly were not moving.

Last Monday, the House Transportation Committee considered substitutes for HB 9 and HJR 9, rewriting them from TLOTA to encompass diversions and gas tax indexing. The substitutes were sent to Calendars Tuesday and died there. HB 1047, another diversion bill, also died in Calendars May 12. SB 216 also addresses diversions but has not been heard in committee. SJR 9, a constitutional amendment addressing diversions, has passed the Senate and is sitting in House Transportation, so conceivably it could still move if it is heard and reported favorably soon. Indexing is most probably dead, as the only bills still alive, SB 217 & SJR 8, have been sitting in committee since February 17 and March 13 without being set for hearing.