Frankfort, KY - Rep. Tom McKee (D-Cynthiana), chair of the House Agriculture and Small Business Committee, said in a weekend interview that he will call Senate Bill (SB) 50, the industrial hemp bill, up for a vote in the next House Ag Committee meeting to be held this Wednesday.
“At this point and unless something changes, we’ll send it out of the committee and I wouldn’t be surprised if it passed unanimously. I’m going to vote for it,” he said.
That may come as a surprise to many supporters of the legislation after the events of last week. On Feb. 27 the bill came in front of the House Ag Committee. There it met with much discussion and ended without a vote, outraging proponents.
McKee met criticism for calling the proceedings out of order after a motion had been made to vote on the bill.
Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, who has pushed hard to get the legislation passed, said he was disappointed in McKee.
“The testimony…was overwhelmingly in favor of SB 50, and we clearly had the votes to pass this bill. This is a perfect example of everything wrong with Frankfort right now,” he said.
But McKee said he clearly stated when the meeting began that the bill would be for discussion only and not for a vote. That is the reason he cited the motion as being out of order, he said.
He said specifically when starting the meeting, that the agenda would include SB50 for discussion only.
“It may include SB50 House Committee Substitute for possible action today,” McKee said recounting his instructions before the meeting.
It is the prerogative of a committee chair to call for a vote after a discussion but that is not something McKee said he did. The Committee Substitute caused much of the debate that occurred during and after the meeting.
“In our committee sub, we were going to call for the University of Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station, if they could possibly get the permits, to grow as much as 10 acres this year. We put an emergency clause in so it could be done this year. We thought that was good. We did have a rather extensive research project attached to it and we thought that was good,” said McKee. “We thought we could improve (the bill) a little bit.”
But supporters want to see the bill passed as is and the way Sen. Paul Hornback, a farmer from Shelby County, introduced the bill.
Many of those supporters were on hand for a press conference convened by Comer the day after the House Ag Committee hearing. They included Hornback, State Senate Majority Floor Leader Sen. Damon Thayer (R-Georgetown), and Sen. Robin Webb (D-Grayson), among others.
Brian Furnish, a member of the Kentucky Hemp Commission, a farmer, former general manager of the Burley Tobacco Cooperative and current president of his own company, the International Tobacco Trading Group was also on hand. He said the initiative has become a political issue opposed by leading state democrats.
“We’re playing politics with it and it’s really not a political issue,” he said. “It’s really about setting up a framework that if the federal government allows it, we’re ready to move forward.”
Furnish also said, that UK has already offered to do a study of the issue at no cost to the Hemp Commission.
Hornback said during the press conference that he hasn’t giving up.
“We know it’s the right thing to do. We know it’s a bipartisan issue and we know that the people of Kentucky are behind it,” he said. “I’m very hopeful there’s an up or down vote on SB 50 the way it is.”
There have been, in the past, many attempts to get some form of legislation passed related to industrial hemp, the latest coming last year when Rep. Richard Henderson (D-Mt Sterling) introduced a bill to allow it. But the issue has seen more than a decade of support from both parties and both legislative chambers at one point or another.
“In 2001 then Rep. Joe Barrows (D-Versailles) sponsored legislation, HB 100 that set forth the framework for all of our hemp rules and said should the federal regulation be lifted that we will follow federal regulations and I voted for that,” said McKee.
He added that he is very much in favor of an industrial hemp bill, but not for legalization of marijuana.
Hemp is of the same plant species as marijuana and does contain very low levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient that produces a “high” causing the plant to be placed on the Drug Enforcement Agency’s list of controlled substances. Marijuana contains much higher levels of THC.
Kentucky State Police have contented that it is possible marijuana growers would try to hide their illegal plants in legal hemp fields because the two plants do look so much alike. McKee said he would like to see those concerns addressed.
“I think in the period of time while we are waiting to hopefully get permits to grow it that we will be able to see the Commissioner of the State Police and the Commissioner of Agriculture sit down and see if they can work and find some common ground,” he said.
With that, whatever political posturing may or may not have been present in the past week, has the potential to subside with McKee’s announcement.
Comer said last week, “This is just a little glitch. We’ll get over it and hopefully we can get this bill passed and we can help our farmers in Kentucky and we can create jobs for Kentuckians.”
McKee also said, “The Ag Commissioner has said this will produce thousands of jobs and thousands of acres of hemp which will be profitable for our farmers and we don’t want to stand in the way of that.”