{"id":39739,"date":"2026-01-29T17:09:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T23:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=39739"},"modified":"2026-01-29T17:09:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T23:09:19","slug":"municipal-natural-gas-sales-authorization-clears-first-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=39739","title":{"rendered":"Municipal natural gas sales authorization clears first round"},"content":{"rendered":"

Certain Nebraska cities could contract with large-scale natural gas users to their mutual benefit under a bill advanced from general file Jan. 29.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Loren Lippincott<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sen. Loren Lippincott of Central City, sponsor of LB548, said the bill would allow 15 Nebraska political subdivisions that own natural gas systems to take advantage of a federal tax exemption to make discounted natural gas sales to certain large industrial users, including ethanol plants.<\/p>\n

This would generate revenue for cities while cutting gas prices for businesses and helping Nebraska compete for new industries, he said.<\/p>\n

Lippincott said a potential contract between Central City and a large industrial facility could generate $500,000 in annual revenue, which the city would use to make electrical infrastructure upgrades that otherwise would be funded with property taxes.<\/p>\n

\u201cLB548 gives cities a tool to fund city services while reducing their tax burden,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Under the bill, as introduced last session, the industrial user could not be a consumer of any investor-owned or governmentally owned gas system at the time the contract is entered into.<\/p>\n

That provision would ensure that cities could not compete with private natural gas suppliers like Black Hills Energy, Lippincott said. Under LB548, he added, cities could contract only with large industrial consumers that already buy natural gas from interstate pipelines on the wholesale market.<\/p>\n

A Natural Resources Committee amendment, adopted 28-1, replaced the bill with a modified version of the original proposal.<\/p>\n

Under the amendment, the industrial consumer would have to be located in Nebraska within 200 miles of the political subdivision, and the facility would be considered within the natural gas distribution system\u2019s service area for the term of the contract.<\/p>\n

A contract could not \u201cpose an unreasonable financial risk\u201d to the political subdivision or its taxpayers as determined by the political subdivision\u2019s governing board.<\/p>\n

Seward Sen. Jana Hughes supported LB548. She called it a \u201ccreative way\u201d for cities to generate extra revenue without undercutting private businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very clear that we are not stealing away a customer from some \u2026 private entity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Sen. R. Brad von Gillern of Elkhorn opposed the bill, saying he is philosophically against allowing a city to engage in private business. He also raised concerns about what could happen if a city becomes reliant on a new revenue stream only to have it dry up.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s say they\u2019ve hired additional police officers\u2026 [and] they\u2019ve built structures that now need to be maintained,\u201d von Gillern said. \u201cAre they still going to be able to do that?\u201d<\/p>\n

LB548 advanced to select file on a vote of 25-9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Certain Nebraska cities could contract with large-scale natural gas users to their mutual benefit under a bill advanced from general file Jan. 29.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[286],"class_list":["post-39739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-natural-resources","tag-sen-loren-lippincott"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/LB548Lippincott1-29-26a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39739"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39741,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39739\/revisions\/39741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}