FRANKFORT — A 380-page bill that underwent significant changes before advancing late in this year’s legislative session would ban the sale of kratom, restrict a type of school board taxation and tax prediction markets, among other changes.  The latest version of House Bill 757, sponsored by R ep. Jason Petrie, R-Elkton, passed Wednesday morning out of the Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee and subsequently passed unanimously on the Senate floor later in the day.  The House would have to concur with any changes made to the bill by the Senate before sending it to Gov. Andy Beshear for his consideration.  Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Ryland Heights, listed various provisions in the bill, titled broadly about “revenue measures,” for the committee.  The bill’s provisions include:  Banning sales of kratom, a controversial herbal supplement often used for anxiety, pain relief and opioid withdrawal symptoms.  McDaniel told reporters that “these gas station drugs are just becoming more and more prolific, and the General Assembly has a real concern relative to them.” “We just feel like it’s not something that should be out there,” McDaniel said.  A number of states have sought to regulate kratom and a derivative of kratom, 7-hydroxymitragynine, or 7-OH. The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services last year finalized regulations to classify 7-OH as a Schedule I narcotic, with Gov. Andy Beshear calling the derivative a “powerful and addictive drug that has no place in Kentucky.” Mac Haddow, a senior fellow on public policy for the nonprofit American Kratom Association, in an email to the Lantern said the ban is “completely out-of-sync with the federal policy on kratom” and argued the ban conflates the kratom derivative 7-OH with kratom itself.  He said a kratom sales ban would have a “significant impact” on sales tax revenue, increase incarceration costs and “increase overdoses and costs for substance abuse treatments” because some people use kratom as an alternative to opioids.  “Banning kratom in Kentucky will have a significant impact on sales tax revenue, increase costs of incarceration given kratom will be criminalized, and will force current kratom consumers who rely on it as an alternative to opioids or illicit drugs that will increase overdoses and costs for substance abuse treatments,” Haddow said.  Implementing a 14.25% tax on the transaction feeds for prediction market operators, which include companies such as Polymarket or Kalshi, and implementing a 12% tax on the receipts of fantasy sports contents.  Online prediction markets are companies that allow users to place money on the outcome of a variety of current events, ranging from sports games to developing news topics. McDaniel told reporters lawmakers aimed to tax companies such as Polymarket, not various commodities markets. Both prediction markets and commodity markets are regulated by the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission.  In fantasy sports, online players create imaginary teams made up of real-life athletes and compete based on their performances. Preventing school district boards from issuing new occupational licensure taxes starting in 2027.  McDaniel told reporters “the biggest issues that we hear about from taxpayers is that the amount of money they’re paying out just goes up and up and up, and we’re trying to get a handle on behalf of the taxpayers.”  Republican Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman in an opinion last year said the Fayette County Public Schools board violated the state’s open meetings law by not giving proper notice before voting to increase occupational taxes within the district.  Sen. Reggie Thomas, D-Lexington, said on the Senate floor that he appreciated a number of provisions in HB 757 but that banning new occupational licensure taxes “does remove a significant source of income for Fayette County.”  “If you look at the quality of schools that we produce and the resources we have, you understand why we are successful,” Thomas said, arguing the ban would restrict the district from making needed renovations to Paul Laurence Dunbar High School.  Exempting a Todd County-based agency proposing to build a Western Kentucky natural gas pipeline project from having its rates and service be regulated by the Kentucky Public Service Commission.  HB 757 includes language similar to that added to Senate Bill 8 by House Appropriations and Revenue Committee Chair Jason Petrie of Todd County to aid the pipeline in a court dispute with the Kentucky Public Service Commission.  The provisions in HB 757 would reshape the makeup of the governing body for the Pennyrile Regional Energy Agency, created by two Todd County cities, to include representatives of cities and counties serving on the body in an ex officio capacity.  Despite the exemption from most PSC regulation, the bill would provide the commission with some oversight over the pipeline agency, dictating that the commission would set rates and minimum monthly charges by the Pennyrile Regional Energy Agency for natural gas service. Audrey Ernstberger, a lobbyist with the environmental legal group Kentucky Resources Council, told the Lantern she has concerns that even with the provisions in HB 757, customers of the pipeline entity “may not have the same protections or recourse that exist for customers of municipal systems or Public Service Commission-regulated utilities.”  She said such a natural gas utility “would be required to provide service at PSC-dictated rates, but there isn’t [a] corresponding provision for the service to be reliable,” Ernstberger said. HB 757 also:  Directs the Kentucky Legislative Research Commission to study and issue a report on the financial structure of banks versus credit unions Sunsets the state’s participation in tax increment financing, or TIF, programs.  Charges an annual license fee of $100 for each electric vehicle charging station port and directs the Kentucky Department of Agriculture to inspect electric vehicle charging stations.  The post Omnibus bill would ban kratom sales, limit school levies and tax prediction markets appeared first on The Lexington Times. ...read more read less