From ou statehouse studio in Montgomery.

I'm Todd Stacy.

Welcome to Capitol Journal.

Today was the 11th day of the Alabama Legislature's 2026 regular session.

And as is typical on Tuesdays.

Things kicked off at the Business Council of Alabama's weekly legislative breakfast.

The Education Budget Committee chairmen were today's invited guests, and they spoke about how the Education Trust Fund budget might look this year.

I think the biggest hurdle, at least from the Senate perspective we're going to face, is managing the expectations, the, the the money has been pretty lofty, but now with Pip and other, needs taken, a large part of that of the capacity to Ta and maneuverability that we're going t have is declining substantially.

So the membership they're still thinking up here, and managing those expectations is is going to be difficult as far as, you know, tryin to manage, you know, keep the, you know, the two biggest things I think we've done.

And everybody in this, enlightened room read the New York Times article yesterday, the Numeracy Act and the Literacy Act and how much of an impact they have had, among others, on our state, which is, been a good thing.

And finally, we know we're getting some national props for, you know, the headway we've been making these past few years.

I think now we're in a situatio where money has gotten tighter with the general fund having been under pressure.

That puts pressure to us, and we have to resist, but also comply at some at some you cooperate.

But there's a fine line there.

But I think that what I'm concerned about is, you know, I see all the accolades we're getting for the improvement scores, whatnot.

That's got to continue.

I mean, I've been around numbers enough that I've seen anomalies and they come and they go.

Numbers look great and they look bad.

You know, look at our reading.

You know, 20 years ago, what looked like.

And then it went back, you know, so I think the issue is we got to make sure that how we're investing our dollars is continuing to address those issues.

And those issues aren't static.

They change constantly.

And so I think that's what we're trying to do is, is create a budget that addresses the issues we have in the state that are evolving in a way that gets into the classroom and makes a difference.

A new legislative package targeting data center costs and overhauling utility governance.

So it's first movement today in the House Committee on Transportation, Utilities and Infrastructure.

The bipartisan grou of lawmakers bringing the bills say their goal is to address affordability for families, specifically in the form of rising electricity bills.

The package would do four major things.

First, require data centers to pay the full costs of grid improvements.

These are the massive computer server facilities that require incredible amounts of energy to power.

Second, it would scale back incentives for data centers and require them to start paying sales taxes on purchases.

Supporter argue that Bentley era economic development incentives for data centers were too generous and lasted too long.

One big portion of the package would make the Public Service Commission, which regulates state utilities appointed rather than elected.

Alabama is one of just ten states that has elected regulators rather than appointed.

And it would restrict utilities like the power company and the gas company from using ratepayer money on lobbyin and other political activities.

It was that third bill making the Public Service Commission an appointed body rather than elected.

That was the subject of a public hearing today.

In the committee, Stat Representative Chip Brown of no.

Bill introduced and explained his bill.

While members of the public were given an opportunity to express their concerns.

Members of House Bill 392.

Alabama is one of only ten states that we elect the Public Service Commission.

We all other regulatory boards in Alabama, our opponent, including 8 a.m.

oversight, ethics, soil and water conservation, banking, Port Authority insurance.

In fact all current three commissioners serving on the Public Servic Commission were appointed, one by Governor Bentle and then two by Governor Ivey.

This legislation will provide accountability.

It requires each utility to have a public hearing once a year, something we don't have down.

This also takes politics out of the Public Service Commission, and potential conflicts of interest will be no out of state interest influencin the Public Service Commission.

The governor and us in the legislature will be and will be accountable for the Public Service Commission will have stronger ethics.

This bill contains, requirements that th Commissioner and their families to not work for or receive any financial gain from, regulated companies, but also companies that are indirectly involved with regulated utilities.

They also cannot own stock.

Utilities will be banned from passing on lobbying and political costs to customers.

I feel this bill provides accountability, stronger ethics reform and transparency.

This is a power grab.

Taking away our right to vote is not a republic.

Republic includes voting and more so as a server, as a waitress who is not bought by anyone I have in the ear of my fellow working class members.

You are going to see vote turnout that you have never seen before, from demographics you are not expecting, and I can guarantee you that in your primary.

This happened because we helped promote working class candidates.

The same week we put multiple working class candidates on for running is the same week.

We now have two separate bills a House bill and a Senate bill with the exact same wording as intentional to push through here quick.

And the people are fed up.

Those bills were advanced by the committe and now go to the House floor, now to the Alabama Senate, which took up legislation that would allow city councils and county commissions to remove local library board members with a two thirds vote of the appointing authority.

Senate Bill 26 is sponsored by State Senator Chris Elliott of Joseph fame, who says the measure reinforces accountability that board members should serve at the pleasure of the elected officials who appoint them.

Democrats in the Senat objected to the bill and slowed things down on the floor to express their concerns.

They argued that expandin removal power could make library board members more susceptible to political pressure.

Tied to these ongoing debates over library content.

I would love to see this bill at least give term limits.

Allow the Library board to be appointed without having that fear o I could be taken off tomorrow.

Just because somebody don't like the color wheel, how are they going to look what the library looks like?

If the if the library going to have our rainbow colors, somebody' going to say that represent gay.

Not homophobic.

You know, if they go in they could be doing, you know, Mardi Gras with red, green and and, you know, different colors.

Well, I don't like those colors.

And because he suggested that I think he o she should come out the board.

We've tried to accommodate that concern with this two thirds you know, barrier to get over.

I mean, it's not jus at the whim of one one member.

It's it's a two thirds, a vote of the body, a supermajority, if you will.

What's good in Hoover may not be good in Bessemer.

And what's good in Orange Beach may not be good in Fairhope.

And so we talked a lot about that today.

I just think it's important to make sure that our local elected officials and I used to be one of them, is in control of of their delegated authority.

At the end of the day, these library board members are great folks.

They, they serve their communities, honorably but they're not federal judges.

And so most of our appointe officials throughout government, executive branch, legislative branch, judicial branch serve at the pleasure of of the, the appointing authority.

And this just makes library boards the same.

That bill passed the Senate 26 to 5, with one abstention, and now goes to the House.

Turning to Washington for a moment, the House appropriations panel overseeing education heard from a pair of Alabama education officials today about the substantial progress made in literacy.

Bonnie Shaw director of the Alabama Reading Initiative, and Larry Salisbury, director of teaching and learning for literacy at Huntsville City Schools.

We're invited by Congressman Robert Aderholt to share what's working in Alabama.

Alabama's experience shows meaningful literacy improvement does not come from isolated programs or short term initiatives.

Instead, it comes from coherent policy paired with long term jo embedded implementation supports that help educators deliver strong instruction.

Identif risk early and respond quickly when students need additional support.

We'll take a short break and b back with more Capitol Journal.

You can watch past episodes of Capital Journal online any time at Alabama Public Television's website.

aptv.. org.

Click on the online video tab on the main page.

You can also connect with Capital Journal and link to past episodes on Capital Journal's Facebook page.

Singer Wilson Pickett was renowned as an energetic and intense performer.

The Prattville native gained international fame with such hits as land of a Thousand Dances and In the Midnight Hour, and became one of the biggest music stars of the 1960s and 70s.

He remains one of the most unique and significant artists of the soul music era.

Atlantic Records produce Jerry Wexler encouraged Pickett to record at Stax Records in Memphis, merging the gospel roots of Pickett's vocals with the strutting, layere rhythms of the Stax musicians.

Picket soon was topping the R&B chart and crossing over to the pop charts.

In early 1966, Wexler took Pickett to Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, which had built a reputation as a versatile source of hit records.

He and the Muscle Shoals Swampers recorded celebratory, hard driving hits such as land of a Thousand Dances and Mustang Sally.

Wilson Pickett was inducted into the Roc and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

Welcome back to Capitol Journal.

Joining me next is State Representative Ed Oliver of Dadeville, chairman of the House Militar and Veterans Affairs Committee.

Mr.

chairman thanks for coming on the show.

Glad to be here.

Well, wanted to have you on for a number of reasons, not least of which being you passed a bill today having to do with nurses, especially as it relates to high school sports.

Tell me what this bill does and why nurse practitioners, nurses, pays physician assistants.

It lets them sign athletic physicals.

And the reason is they're the people that usually perform the physicals anyway, but they did not have the authority to sign them.

So what happen is it sits on the doctor's desk.

Or even worse, your kid has to go sit in a doctor's office for two hours trying to get an appointment to get a, physical.

This just makes it a lot, lot easier to do.

And it's just as practical for athletes because a lot of times you gotta have a physical before you're approved to play football or basketball or whatever.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Do you see i gaining traction in the Senate?

And I mean, what are the stakes?

Well, it passed very easily in the House.

I would say that it would pass very easily in the Senate.

And it's not an increase of scope of practice or anything like that.

It's just a very practical bill, I see.

Well, I, I wanted to talk to yo about your physician bill, too, because this is 115, I believe, has to do with rural physicians.

We know that we're having trouble and have for years recruiting, if you want to call it that getting physicians to look at in rural areas is just a different, cos to it, different cost of living.

It's hard to make a living, in many cases a family doctor in rural areas.

I know that you want to kind of address that issue.

How would this bill address that issue?

Well, there's an existing bill that it gives a $5,000 per year tax credit.

The new legislation would amend that to make that $10,000, and do it for five years.

And $50,000 is a lot of money for somebody moving to a rural area, particularly a young doctor coming out of medical school with, you know, student loans and that sort of thing.

We think that would be a very healthy thing to attract rural physicians.

So if I'm a, brand new medical doctor coming out or for any medical doctor don't have to be brand new, and I decide that I want to go to.

Dave, I don't know if they would count as rural and, okay.

So Danville and Elk City, both in this bill, actually came from Alexander City.

That's where it originated.

So so that would be an incom tax break and income tax credit.

It's an income tax credit.

Now well how do you think?

I mean, just practically speaking, what do you what's the feedback from the medical community?

I mean, would they or do they see this very positive, very positive.

Every doctor, every physician group that I know of or I've come in contact with supports it.

Okay.

Now, what are its chances?

Anytime we talk tax credits everybody loves the tax credit.

But it also means a hit on the revenue I would assume, to the education trust fund.

So what what are the conversation with budget leaders and things?

It is a tough year for tax credits.

No, we've run this bill.

This is the third year.

So we would like to think that it's popular enough.

And the speaker even has an amendment on it.

So you would think it would be an incredibly popular bill.

But that said, all bill have to compete with other bills when it comes to tax credits, and we're just one of them.

We have to decide what the priorities for the legislature are going to be.

We know that rural hospitals, rural health care in general just faces a lot of challenge.

Do you find this to be kind o one of the pieces of the puzzle with that?

Because, you know, we had the same thing with nurses.

There's a rural hospital tax credit, that they just amended, last week.

So it's physicians, the next kind of piece of that puzzle term.

Yes.

It all works together.

We're short doctors, nurses, every position you can think of.

Okay, well we'll be tracking that for sure.

I wanted to ask you about House Bill 400.

This seems to be something coming down the track, so we might need to pay attention to.

And again, we're talking about rural health care.

This has to do with ambulances and and their scope of care and everything like that.

What does your bill do and why is it necessary?

I like to refer to it as the ambulance bill, but it's also called the Treat in Place bill.

And it defines two things.

One, it establishes a bas rate for what the reimbursement rate would be for an ambulance service, per trip.

And the other thing it does is it defines treat in place, which is a relatively new concept, and it's sort of, carryover from community medicine.

And in that you would have, treat in plac for the ambulance or a paramedic and a pickup truck or whatever shows up at a rural area.

He can do, non-emergency calls, which means if you have somebody sick or aged or, chronically il that you don't want to transport in the ambulance he can treat them in place via, telehealth or up to the levels of his license.

I see, it makes a lot more sense in putting people in an ambulance, which they're already not enough of, and hauling them somewhere when they don't really need to go.

So that saves us mileage on the ambulances.

Makes them more available for other real emergencies.

Plus, it's way cheaper than taking them to the emergency room.

I mean, just a fraction of what the cost of an emergency room visit would be.

Is that what happens right now?

Like, if I'm in a rural area and I call an ambulance, do they pretty much have to take me somewher in terms of getting me treated?

Or are there options?

And, a good percentage of people are not transported.

The ambulance shows up so they're taken out of service for any other type of call.

And currently if they don't transport, they don't get paid.

So that's, that's one of the reasons this legislation was very important.

Okay.

So there's a there's a built in incentive to transport but disincentive not to transport.

Oh well.

And here's the and there's another incentive not to transport which is called trade in place okay.

So if they treat that person where they're sitting is they don't need to be transported, they don't transport them.

And another part of trade in place is very important is the other vehicle which the you have a paramedi who never leaves the local area.

He stays right there and does not transport.

So if your ambulance is gone, say it's in Birmingham or Montgomery, you're in some rural place.

That paramedic is always local.

So if you have an extended ambulance time, he has hands on that patient while you're waitin for that ambulance to get there.

Also that paramedic, like I said, someone sick, chronically ill, he can actually go in and do a house visit, walk in the door on a non-emergency number that you call, and, bill for that service.

Okay.

Now, anytime you talk about the medical community and scope of care and things like that, it can be controversial.

So with, you know, two thirds of the session left in front of us, do you see this bill getting some traction?

What what's your feedback from your colleagues?

This is a bill we've worked on for a couple of years.

I think there's a good chance we will pass it this year.

And what we're doing is only a study so it'll last for three years, and then we'll we'll sit down again and decide what data we've collected.

The Alabama Department of Public Health will collect data so that when the big, beautiful bill money drops on us.

And remember the treaty in place as one of the 11, things that we're going to do.

Fund, fund rural health.

Yes.

Okay.

So, it's very importan we know how to spend that money when the time comes.

So that's what we're doing right now is we're trying to develop data to see how this works.

And we've been running this program for two years in my district, on a trial basis to see how the trade in place works.

And it's very effective in that area.

So we believe it will b effective throughout the state.

Interesting.

Three rura hospital rural health care bills that they have right there at the top.

We'll look you are the chairman of the military and veterans committee, veterans Affairs committee in the House.

I saw that one of your bills this session has to do with the cemetery.

The plan for North Alabama.

I had, Jeff Commissioner Newton in here the other day, and he was really excited abou all the progress is being made up there in North Alabama.

Why is thi what does this legislation do?

And and just tell m about that progress about that.

So we already operate a cemetery in South Alabama.

So we wanted to expan that one to the north Alabama.

And it's in Huntsville, of course.

And we have a lot of veterans there that appreciate having that service.

Right.

And so this is how many years out you think?

I would sa relatively soon I think it would probably be open for business, within the next session.

Yeah.

It is very, very needed.

Well, so it was last session that y'all passed a pretty big Veterans Affairs reform bill reforming Adva, the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs, the governance in terms of it becoming a cabinet, fully into the cabinet, some other reforms and things like that.

Now that it's been a year as chairman, how would yo assess how that bill or that law has been implemente and how things are going so far?

Well, it was a two part bill.

You know, we're actually there were two bills, one, establish the Veterans Resource Center and one established the way we appoint board members, and the commissioner, I think the two work hand in hand, very proud of the way the board has worked.

Very proud of the way the Veterans Resource Center has come together and how quickly it is developed.

And we're about to open the doors.

So, on the Veterans Resource Center and where's Adva or the Alabam Department of Veterans Affairs?

Previously had Vsos, veteran services officers in the counties.

They provided the cemetery, of course, and they had veterans homes.

Now they'll provide services, such as mental health screening, job placement.

Greg Reed, you know, runs the Veterans Resource Center.

So you've got the, department workforce, right?

Is is, and the interesting part of that is one of the things that we discovered with the veterans suicide is virtually, every person that took their own life was either unemployed or severely underemployed.

So that's one of the first things we wanted to address.

So long story short, we provide more and better services than we did before.

And I'm very proud of that.

Yeah.

Veterans resource Cente opening, I think next week or.

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

So that's exciting.

And we're going to be on hand for that.

It's a success story, certainly to share.

And I hope you'l keep us updated because, again, such a big reform, not just the Veterans Resource Center, but, you know, key reforms to the the board and how it's governance important to follow going forward.

Representative, thanks for your time this this afternoon and I hop to see more of you this session.

Delighted to be here.

We'll be right back.

Alabama Public Television is your place for quality educational services.

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My son's name is Nathan.

Nathan is a welder.

He enjoys it.

Loves it.

So my plan is that he would graduate from private high schoo and go on to Auburn University, which is where everyon on his dad's side of the family goes to college.

It was very obvious now tha I have the ability to step back.

He does much better hands on learning.

Nathan had taken a tour at a local career technical school and was very interested in the welding program.

My initial reactio about a career technical school was probably the farthest from the truth.

You know, I was projecting my thoughts onto him and my expectations onto him, and it really took a lot of mom maturity to step back and just step up and be there for him.

After high school, Nathan found a welding job very quickly.

I would say within three weeks of graduation, he was working for a local contractor.

I remember having a conversation with my own mother and she said, is there really any money in welding?

What exactly do welders do?

So as an 18 year old, he's making $47 an hour, right?

So I thought I was raising a CEO.

And as it turned out, I was raising a welder.

Who knew?

Nathan knew?

The World War Two era Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American pilots in U.S.

military service.

Because Tuskegee was the only training facility for black pilots in the United States during World War II.

Potential pilot came from all over the country.

The first African-American flying unit was the 99th Fighter Squadron, which deployed in the spring of 1943.

The 99th earned a Distinguished Unit Citation, flying missions against enemy targets over Italy.

The second flying unit, the 332nd fighter Group, flew several successful bomber escort missions throughout the war.

Its P-51 fighters ha distinctively painted red tails, earning the unit and its planes the nickname Red tails.

In 1948, Presiden Truman issued an executive order mandating the racial integration of all military services.

The way was paved by the Tuskegee Airmen of Worl War Two, and in 2007, President Bush collectively awarded them a Congressional Gold Medal.

That's our show for tonight.

Thanks for watching.

We'll be back tomorrow night with more coverage of the Alabama Legislature, specifically Committee Day.

That's tomorrow night on Alabama Public Television.

From our Capital Journal team.

I'm Todd Stacey.

We'll see you next time.