Current Bills in Legislative Have Potential to Affect Nebraska City

NEBRASKA CITY- Nebraska Senator Julie Slama talked about the potential to replace Arbor Day as a national holiday, lighter restrictions on fireworks in Nebraska, as well as numerous other bills.

In this month's installment of "Hot Topics," senator Slama joined via Zoom to talk about the current status of bills in the Legislative office. Although it wasn't the first bills senator Slama talked about, she made sure to double back and talk about bill LB29. More specifically, the bill to replace Arbor Day with Juneteenth as a state holiday.

The bill was initially introduced to the floor in early 2021, Jan. 7th, by Nebraska senator Justin Wayne from District 13. On Jan. 11th the bills was referred to the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. Two days later, Nebraska senator Megan Hunt added her name to the bill. 

Nebraska has a set number of state holidays annually. According to senator Slama, the committee that the bill is being brought to will not let the bill leave committee if that means that Arbor Day will be removed as a state holiday.

Senator Slama also says that Nebraska City and River Country residents can "be confident Arbor Day is not going anywhere. It's here to stay."

Other bills that were talked about in the meeting were LB152, or a bill to legalize fireworks to the same level as Missouri, according to senator Slama. The bill was introduced on Jan. 8th of this year and would make it so that Nebraska residents "would no longer have to cross the border to South Dakota, Kansas, or Missouri to get the fireworks (they) want on the Fourth of July," according to Slama.

Senator Slama also mentioned that there was a recently introduced bill to help close the gap on rural broadband internet access.