Companies that generate electricity would need a plan in advance for what happens to their equipment when they don't need it anymore.

State Representative Josh Branscombe.

Talked about House Bill four today on the House floor.

He says taxpayers shouldn't have to pay to clean up old oil wells and solar panels years down the road.

The primary purpose remains the same as last year to starve it to establish state level decommissioning requirements so that when Merchant Electric generating facilities such as made the solar facilities that we're seeing pop up pop up across the state are at the end of their useful life some 20 or 30 years down the road, that there are guardrails and procedures in statute for requiring that facility owner to return the land back to its previous form.

And equally important, requiring that the facility owner maintains a financial assurance such as a bond for the life of the project to cover the cost of decommissioning.

This ensures that the cost for the decommissioning and the removal of equipment 20 to 30 years down the road does not fall on the back of our farmers, our landowners and our fellow Kentuckians.

We have to be proactive in making sure that we do not run into a situation that we have right now in Kentucky, where we have 14,000 orphaned oil and gas wells across rural Kentucky and having to rely on federal funds, taxpayer money to decommission or plug those.

The Kentucky Farm Bureau.

The Kentucky League of Cities and the Kentucky Judge Executives Association all support the bill it passed in the House today unanimously.