Senate Bill four, if passed, is supposed to protect Kentucky's electric grid and also help the coal industry.

The bill from State Senator Rob Mills of Henderson would prohibit the Public Service Commission from allowing utilities to retire coal fired power plants unless several conditions are met.

Details and tonight's legislative update now here are those conditions.

First, the utility must replace the retired unit with new electric generating capacity.

Second, rate payers wouldn't have to pay for the new unit.

And finally, retiring a unit can't be the result of financial incentives from the federal government.

Senator Mills spoke about the need for this bill on the Senate floor last week.

This bill is a statement by the policy makers of the Kentucky legislature that quote unquote temporary service interruptions or quote unquote blackouts are not acceptable, and that Kentucky is going to do all we can to do within our powers to make sure that we have reliable, resilient and affordable electricity in our state.

A winter storm in December led to widespread power outages in the Commonwealth.

Major utility companies in the state resorted to rolling blackouts to try to keep pace with the demand.

Shortly before the storm, LG Annie and Q announced a plan to retire four coal fired units and replace them with a pair of natural gas facilities.

State Senator Philip Wheeler from Bible says his region has been devastated by policies from Washington.

Speaking in favor of the bill, he said.

My region, my home, has lived through the devastation wrought by Washington on rural America, through their insatiable efforts to go green as they fly around in their corporate jets.

These limousine liberals lecturing to the rest of us about how we need to get clean, how we need to put more coal miners in my district out of work.

You know, I sit there and wonder, you know, what reality do these folks actually live in?

State Senator David Yates, a Democrat from Louisville, says sometimes it would cost customers more to stick with coal.

Ladies and gentlemen, somebody has to pay for it.

And I'll tell you, my constituents, they can't afford it.

They cannot afford another hit in their utilities.

That difference, a78 percent increase because of what we do here.

Whatever that number is, because I'm looking in, you're talking about scrubbing and it cost about $600 million.

The bill passed the Senate 25 to 8 last week, and it's now headed to the House for consideration there.

State Senator Danny Carroll says nuclear energy is the way of the future.

He's the sponsor of Senate Joint Resolution 79, which would establish the Nuclear Energy Development Working Group.

The group's goal would be to determine the barriers to nuclear power generation in Kentucky.

To submit a report to the governor and the LRC by the end of the year and to help create a permanent nuclear energy Commission.

The resolution passed the full Senate unanimously last week and is now waiting on action from the House.