2026 Regular Session - Day 45 - HB 622 | Rep. John Blanton

Would you ask the clerk to report House Committee Substitute 1, please? Clerk, please report. House Committee Substitute 1 to House Bill 622. General McLaughlin. Move adoption. Motion is for the adoption of House Committee Substitute 1. Is there any discussion of Committee Substitute 1? Seeing none, those in favor signify by voting aye. Those opposed, nay. House Committee Substitute 1 is adopted. General McLaughlin. Mr. Speaker, House Bill 622 is amended by House Committee Substitute 1. It deals with our local county government road and the county rural aid funds. And what it does is it will allow a county to take their municipal aid funds that they receive and utilize some of that funding to use chip and seal or RAP on gravel roads. And the way that would work would be they would determine the number of road mileage they have of roads and whatever percentage of those roads are gravel, they could use that percentage towards chip and seal and RAP with the hope of getting them to eventually be asphalt or blacktop is what we're trying to achieve here. And that would be Section 1. Section 2 then is simply taking language that we generally have in the transportation budget dealing with RAP. If you're not familiar with RAP, it's simply recycled asphalt that goes back through the plant, recycled, reheated, and it comes out pretty much as strong as new asphalt. And so it allows the cabinet to utilize RAP on our programs. It saves us money. It allows us to stretch our monies farther. But it does take approval of the Transportation Cabinet for that particular RAP mix to make sure it meets the standards. That's what this bill does. If there's no questions, Mr. Speaker, I would move passage of House Bill 622 as amended by House Committee Sub 1.