In March 2022, S. Yager and Rep. Vaughan sponsored a completely different version of HB2246/SB2077 than they had originally proposed, on behalf of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and the Tennessee Fuel and Convenience Store Association. It had become a “caption bill,” a sneaky legislative strategy to rewrite the entire bill through an amendment and evade public oversight. Now, instead of simply studying energy infrastructure, the bill aimed to preempt local laws on energy infrastructure, a common practice among red states to overrule fossil fuel regulations.

"Preemption" is an increasingly-common government practice. It happens when a higher level of government restricts the power of a lower level. In this case, it was the TN State Legislature restricting what Memphis & Shelby County can do. Traditionally, it was used to set "policy floors," or minimum requirements (like minimum wages) that set baseline civil rights that local communities could increase if they desired. Lately, it's been used to set "policy ceilings," restricting local communities from making policies to protect hot issues like transgender and reproductive rights.

This bill would take away local power over energy infrastructure from all 95 counties in TN and give that power to private oil and gas companies. Local governing bodies would be unable to pass resolutions, zoning laws, permit fees, or other protective measures that protect residents and our environment from hazardous energy infrastructure. Yager argued that counties “micromanaging” fossil fuel operations would “only serve to hurt our Tennessee economy.”

POA supporters and coalition members from across the state acted quickly to try and defeat the bill. We called it the “Pipelines Over People Bill,” as our state legislators were putting the interests of private companies over the health and safety of Tennessee residents. Thousands of emails and numerous phone banks targeted the House and Senate Commerce Committees to vote the bill down. Our coalition made several visits to Capitol Hill, presenting comments to the TN General Assembly and meeting with legislators including Rep. Vaughan.

On March 15th and 29th, 2022, all of our recommended amendments to include Wellhead Protection areas and remove ambiguous language were accepted. This allowed room for our Memphis and Shelby County ordinances to stand; all of our advocacy would not be undone! These amendments also ultimately weakened the overall power of the bill statewide. The bill ultimately passed into bad law, preventing local decision-making on energy projects – like pipelines, gas stations, chemical facilities, sand mining, and more – across the state of Tennessee.