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Oklahoma Senate
The Senate has taken a giant step forward by promoting further discussions by all stakeholders on legislation to modernize Oklahoma’s archaic and uncompetitive laws regulating alcohol sales. Senate Bill 383, by Sen. Stephanie Bice, began as an effort to give liquor stores the option of selling refrigerated beer. Bice, R-Oklahoma City, said since that time, the focus of the legislation has changed.
State Sen. Stephanie Bice has filed legislation that would allow retail liquor stores to sell refrigerated high-point beer in Oklahoma. Bice said this change is something Oklahomans have increasingly been asking for.
“I’ve heard from scores of Oklahomans from all parts of the state who are really supportive of this effort to modernize state law to enable the sale of cold high-point beer in liquor stores,” said Bice, R-Oklahoma City. “The response I’ve received has been overwhelmingly in favor of this legislation.”
In September, Oklahoma prisons went on lockdown. It began with a gang-related fight in the Northeast Oklahoma Correctional Center in Vinita before spreading to prisons throughout the state. A coordinated uprising, which resulted in injuries to correctional officers, the hospitalization of 36 inmates and the death of one inmate. All coordinated with cellphones.
State Sen. Micheal Bergstrom, R-Adair, has been appointed to serve on the Oklahoma Route 66 Centennial Commission, a 21-member panel that will help plan the state’s celebration of the 100th anniversary of “The Mother Road.”
read more.Self-driving cars, e-scooters, more commercial uses for drones and drone-ports and the expanded use of electric vehicles were all part of the discussion at an interim study held this week by the Senate Transportation Committee. The Monday hearing was requested by Sen. Micheal Bergstrom, who serves as vice-chair of the committee. He said emerging transportation technologies bring with them a host of opportunities and concerns that need to be addressed sooner, rather than later.
read more.County sheriffs throughout Oklahoma have received much-needed support with the passage of Senate Bill 244 this past session. The measure, by Senate principal author Micheal Bergstrom, R-Adair, and House principal author Rep. Zack Taylor, R-Seminole, ends a practice that often resulted in county jails having to pay for the cost of housing inmates awaiting transport to facilities operated by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections (DOC). The new law took effect on August 30.
read more.State Senator Micheal Bergstrom, R-Adair, has proposed a three phase plan aimed at providing pay raises for state teachers and state employees.
“The national debt just surpassed $20 trillion this week, and it is projected to increase by a trillion dollars a year for the next decade. This is just not sustainable,” said Bergstrom, R-Adair.
read more.
State Sen. Micheal Bergstrom has filed a bill that would cap tax credits at $25 million statewide for electricity generated by zero emission facilities, including wind energy, and another that could use the savings to provide a graduated teacher pay raise over the next three years.
A dangerous five-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 59 (State Highway 9) in LeFlore County was finally advanced on the Oklahoma Department of Transportation’s $6.5 billion 2020-2027 Eight-Year Construction Work Plan. Local officials and citizens have been eagerly awaiting the road repairs for several years. According to ODOT, the section of four-lane highway has been delayed in the plan since 2005 because of alignment issues, increased costs and state and federal budget cuts.
