Autonomous Vehicles, The Energy Race: MT Legislature Highlights

For 4 hours I had microphones set up in front of the 3rd floor fan window of the Montana Capitol, and we got to hear from lawmaker after lawmaker after lawmaker. We also heard from some great leaders of your rural electric cooperatives.

Big thanks to Ryan Hall and Gary Wiens with the Montana Electric Cooperatives' Association for lining up a great lineup of guests. We also had several lawmakers just drop in and join us on the mic.

Here's the best part- we gave each of them the opportunity to tell us what they're working on this session. Needless to say, we learned a lot, heard about some interesting topics, and got some great insight.

Here's one of the more interesting topics that came up: autonomous vehicles and "platooning trucks."

State Sen. Denley Loge (R-St. Regis) has a background in transportation.

Sen. Loge: Right now we don't have anything in Montana that states the regulation or permits. So actually a truck, what they do- Sometimes they'll have a lead truck, a semi, and the second truck and third truck can drive without a driver- and without any safety regulations that, we're just trying to come up with some guidelines. Not necessarily to stop it, but to have the safety guidelines. And the other thing is dealing with automated cars. We have five steps of automation on vehicle cars, and we're trying to come up with some guidelines there as well so that we have some safety- especially the fully autonomous, without even a driver's seat."

We also heard from legislative leaders like MT Senate President Matt Regier (R-Kalispell) and Speaker of the MT House Brandon Ler (R-Savage). Rep. Jed Hinkle also told us about his mule deer bill that some of you were asking about. And Rep. Kerri Seekins Crowe (R-Billings) talked about her HB 121 clearing the House.

Plus, electric co-op leaders talked about their legislative priorities, especially when it comes to wildfire insurance.

Here's the full 4 hours of our coverage from the Montana Capitol Friday morning: