Things moved along quickly today in the House. Just moments after they convened on Wednesday they sent the BP Oil Spending bill to the Ways and Means Committee.
Rep. Jeff Smith, Chairman of the committee urged members to pass the bill clean (with no amendments) in order to get the bill back to the House floor for a vote as quick as possible.
“We’re gonna ty to pass this bill clean, get it to the Governor and get our butts out of this town,” said chairman Jeff Smith just before taking questions on SB 2002 #msleg
— Yall Politics (@MSyallpolitics) August 29, 2018
Several Representatives had questions on how the special projects were decided and if there had been any hearings held to determine what those 128 projects were included in Section 13, pertaining to transportation.
“Santa Claus has come down the chimney on the Senate side,” said Rep. Earle Banks. He says that most of the projects included in the bill came from the senate and not from the House.
Rep. Smith urged House Representatives not to add any amendments before the bill is brought up for a final vote.
Several amendments were offiered, but were not accepted by the House leaving the bill clean.
The House passed the BP Oil Spending bill on a vote of 99-10
This sent both the House and Senate back to their chambers for sine die as the Governor held a press conference in which he recognized the work of both Senators and Representatives on these three pieces of legislation.
Earlier today Gov. @PhilBryantMS signed HB 1 into law. He was joined by members of the House and Senate including @PhilipGunnMS @tatereeves, Rep. Clarke, Sen. Willie Simmons, and Sen. Moran #msleg #MIMA pic.twitter.com/3c9NvI3J3G
— Yall Politics (@MSyallpolitics) August 29, 2018
The Governor then signed HB 1, the Mississippi Infrastructure Modernization Act into law.
Sarah Ulmer
