4 ILLINOIS BUSINESS LEADER FEATURE helpful to companies who have not yet been sued. In both the House Judiciary Civil Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee and on the floors of both chambers, an exchange denoting legislative intent to inform the courts of the opportunity to use SB2979 as the basis for the calculation of damages in cases which haven’t been completed. In the Senate, the dialog was between Senate President Don Harmon and Senate President Pro Tempore Bill Cunningham. In the House, Representative Dan Didech and Representative Ann Williams put the scripted legislative intent on the record. The exchanges in the respective chambers followed along these lines: 1. The intent of the amendment regarding assessment of liquid damages to deter future viola tions without destroying defen dant’s business. 2. The amendment doesn’t au thorize a death penalty to the business. 3. A clarification about retroac tivity that implies that a court could take “judicial notice” of the amendment in determining an initial award or in reducing an award. The bill sponsor made mention of the recent development that White Castle was going to pay less than $10 million to resolve their BIPA issues rather than the potential $17 billion that the Supreme Court had outlined as a potential. In summary, the Chamber still opposed this bill – not because it doesn’t help, but because it is missing a vital component: an allowance for a security exception to the current BIPA framework. For example, com panies engaged in the transportation safety business have had to disable some security features of their offer ings to steer clear of BIPA violations when drivers are passing through Illi nois. Making Illinois roads less safe was never the intent of the original BIPA language. That is an unfortu nate, but correctable consequence of BIPA. Efforts are underway to make that adjustment in future conversa tions related to BIPA. Comprehensive Carbon Capture & Sequestration Legislation Heads to Governor After Two Years of Negotiation One of our biggest priorities, and therefore our biggest wins this session, was getting comprehensive carbon capture legislation adopted by the General Assembly and signed by the Governor. While we await his signature, SB 1289 was a huge victory that was two years in the making. The proposal endorses the federal Class 6 well program and allows for the unitization of pore space in Illinois. These are enormous victories. Unfortunately, this victory comes with a number of questions. The bill troublingly includes a tempo rary moratorium on CO2 pipelines, includes vague language on criteria pollutant emission increases result ing from CCA projects, and includes costs and fees that will be an impedi ment to many projects. But this bill is still a key first step, and now the real work begins. Agreed Workers’ Compensation Bill Passes House and Senate In late May, the Illinois House voted 79-29-0 and the Senate voted 44- 14-0 in favor of SB 1996, the agreed workers’ compensation bill. This legislation provides a very modest increase to fund the operations of the workers compensation commis sion. The legislation was a part of the agreed bill process which requires representatives of business and labor to come together and agree on legislation related to workers comp. On the house floor, it was made clear that the agreed bill process will be utilized next year on a broader range of workers comp reforms for Illinois. The Governor signed the bill into law last week. END OF SESSION REPORT
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