A Rundown Of 3 Major Bills The Assembly Is Taking Up Today

Lawmakers Have Begun Final Leg Of The 2015-16 Session

By
Shawn Johnson/WPR

Update: The Assembly voted Tuesday afternoon to approve bills lifting the state’s moratorium on nuclear power plants, strengthening penalties for hiding corpses, and boosting efforts to fight heroin use.

The state Assembly is convening Tuesday afternoon, with a number of high-profile bills up for debate. Here are some of the measures that are at issue:

Ending Wisconsin’s nuclear power plant moratorium

Stay informed on the latest news

Sign up for WPR’s email newsletter.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Right now, state regulators can’t approve a new nuclear power plant unless a federal facility for storing waste from nuclear plants nationwide exists and such a plant wouldn’t burden ratepayers. No central federal repository exists, leaving nuclear plants to store their waste on-site.

A bill that will be taken up on Tuesday would erase the storage facility and ratepayer clauses from state law, clearing the way for new plants. The bill’s author, Republican Rep. Kevin Peterson, maintains nuclear power is an affordable option as the state faces new federal rules on greenhouse gas emissions.

Increasing penalties for hiding corpses

Right now, hiding a corpse is a Class G felony that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine. A Republican-authored bill would classify the crime as a more severe Class F felony punishable by up to 12 years in prison and $25,000 in fines.

The Senate approved the bill on a voice vote in June. Approval in the Assembly would send the measure on to Gov. Scott Walker for his signature.

Slowing the spread of heroin

Republican Rep. John Nygren has introduced a package of bills that are meant to prevent prescription drug abuse that can lead to heroin addiction. One bill would require opiate dispensers to enter prescriptions into a statewide database within 24 hours. The other bills in the package would require police who find an opiate prescription at an overdose scene to enter it in the database; methadone and pain clinics to register with the state, require treatment programs using methadone to report the number of people receiving the medication annually to the state.

-Erik Lorenzsonn contributed writing to this report.