Handguns, education, salt domes, equal pay for women and more. BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Louisiana residents should be able to get lifetime concealed handgun permits, rather than have to reapply for the permits every five years, the House decided in a 64-19 vote Wednesday.
Permit holders would still have to meet education requirements every five years, but wouldn't have to submit a new application and fingerprints, under the proposal (House Bill 265) by Rep. Barry Ivey, R-Central.
Rather than pay a $125 fee every five years, the permit applicant would pay a one-time, $500 fee or a $250 fee if age 65 or older.
The bill heads next to the Senate for debate.
___
The House Education Committee approved a measure that would allow parents to petition the Recovery School District to return a school back to local control if that school has earned a "D'' or "F'' for three consecutive years under RSD management.
Under the proposal (House Bill 115) by Rep. Ted James, D-Baton Rouge, schools could be returned to local school system control if parents of a majority of the students sign a petition making the request. The bill also would require the state education board to adopt rules for the petition process and a procedure for transferring students.
The Recovery School District is run by the state Department of Education to manage chronically low-performing schools. It currently operates 80 schools around the state, including 68 in New Orleans and eight in Baton Rouge.
James' bill was approved 17-0 and moves to the House floor for debate.
___
Two measures aimed at regulating the operations of salt domes, prompted by a 13-acre sinkhole in Assumption Parish, made it out of a House committee and could be debated on the House floor next week.
The bills (House Bills 493 and 494) by Rep. Karen St. Germain, D-Pierre Part, were approved without objection by the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee.
St. Germain represents a district that includes the sinkhole near Bayou Corne that officials say was caused by a collapsed underground salt cavern. The sinkhole was discovered in August and has resulted in an on-going evacuation order for 150 residents.
The proposals would require stricter guidelines for monitoring and assessing areas around salt domes. One measure calls for surveying salt dome formations every five years, and the other requires legal notification of the location of underground caverns to prospective property owners.
A salt dome is a large, naturally occurring underground salt deposit. Companies drill on the dome's outskirts and inject water to extract brine that is used in petrochemical refining, creating caverns that can be used to store such things as hydrocarbons.
The state Department of Natural Resources says 120 salt domes are located throughout the state and contain about 270 solution mine caverns, 50 of which are no longer used.
___
Legislation aimed at ensuring that women and men are compensated equally for doing the same work stalled Wednesday in the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee.
The panel deadlocked in a 4-4 vote for the proposal (Senate Bill 153) by Sen. Ed Murray, D-New Orleans. Murray could try to revive the measure at another meeting.
The bill would make it illegal for an employer with 15 workers or more to pay women less than the same rate paid to men for the same work, with exceptions for seniority and other performance-based systems. Business groups oppose the bill year after year, saying federal law adequately addresses the issue.
___
A proposal seeking to create a seamless network of early childhood education programs and standards for kindergarten readiness cleared the Senate without opposition.
Under the measure (Senate Bill 130) by Sen. Conrad Appel, R-Metairie, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education would oversee all publicly-funded programs that provide education services to children from birth to age 5.
The bill would require BESE to establish and implement common standards for kindergarten readiness, assessment and accountability. The system would be in place by the 2015-2016 school year.
All public schools and school districts, as well as private schools or centers that receive public funds, would be required to be part of the network and have their programs graded for kindergarten readiness partly based on student evaluation.
The proposal now moves to the House for consideration.
___
In other legislative action:
-The House Education Committee backed a proposal (House Bill 206) to allow local elections, rather than statewide ones, to decide on the creation of new school districts. An 11-4 vote for the proposal by Rep. Gene Reynolds, D-Minden, came despite objections from some parent and teacher organizations who said the measure would create segregated school districts. The constitutional change heads to the full House.