Rep. Jesse Vanderwende

This concurrent resolution proclaims the week of May 18-24, 2025, Delaware Grown Week. Eleven years ago, the General Assembly first partnered with the Delaware Department of Agriculture to establish this annual observation to facilitate better, healthier relationships between Delaware farmers and local consumers. Delaware Grown Week is celebrated annually, the third full week of May. Successful passage of this resolution will continue this worthy collaboration.

Maddy summarySenate Concurrent Resolution 64 designates May 2025 as "Small Business Month" in the State of Delaware. This resolution serves as a formal recognition of the importance and contributions of small businesses within the state.

This Concurrent Resolution designates May 7, 2025, as "4-H Day" in the State of Delaware and calls upon Delaware's citizens to recognize the many contributions of the State's 4-H programs.

Maddy summarySenate Concurrent Resolution 55 recognizes April 18, 2025, as "National Line Worker Appreciation Day" in the State of Delaware. This resolution aims to honor line workers for their essential role in providing power and maintaining infrastructure across the state.

Maddy summarySenate Concurrent Resolution 53 recognizes April 21-25, 2025, as "National Home Visiting Week" in the State of Delaware. This resolution aims to acknowledge the importance of home visiting programs.

The Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) is the percentage of electricity that utilities must source from renewables. This is presently set at 25% and will increase annually, culminating at 40% in 2035. Delaware does not currently have enough renewable energy to meet the present mandate, let alone future RPS requirements. Renewable energy is also in short supply on the regional power grid. If it is available, consumers are paying additional distribution charges to transmit it to Delaware. If renewable energy is not obtainable, Delaware utilities are paying penalties to the state for failing to achieve the RPS mandate. In each of the last two years, Delmarva Power has spent about $13 million annually in such state mandated compliance fees. All these cost multipliers are being passed along to consumers, making power more expensive for Delaware ratepayers. This bill recognizes the current flawed public energy policy that has resulted in renewable energy demand significantly outpacing supply. This legislation seeks to provide relief to Delawareans by rolling back the Renewable Portfolio Standard to 10% and maintaining the RPS requirement for the next 10 years, providing sufficient time for renewable generation capacity to meet demand. After the 10-year period expires, the RPS percentage will resume scheduled annual increases.

This bill repeals the Delaware Advanced Clean Air Program and adopts the Delaware Low Emissions Program thereby terminating the Electric Vehicle Mandate.

This Act strengthens Delaware’s existing Right to Farm laws by expanding protections for agricultural operations against nuisance lawsuits. Specifically, this Act removes the current requirement that an agricultural operation have existed for 1 year or more in order to benefit from statutory protections against nuisance suits. Under this Act, an agricultural operation cannot be deemed a nuisance as long as it is operating in accordance with all applicable local, state, and federal requirements and is not being conducted in a negligent or improper manner. This protection cannot be used against a federal, state, or local agency that is enforcing air, water quality, or other environmental standards under federal, state, or local law. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This Act requires that an enacted state agency regulation will automatically expire unless explicitly reauthorized by the General Assembly to continue. This Act creates the Joint Committee on Oversight of Agency Regulations (“Committee”) to engage in review and oversight of regulations adopted by State agencies and recommend to the General Assembly whether or not the regulations should be allowed to expire. Like laws in states such as Colorado and Utah, this Act does all of the following: (1) Requires that all regulations adopted by an agency during the 12-month period preceding each October 31 expire at 5:00 p.m. on the following June 30 unless the General Assembly enacts a law to remove the expiration of the regulation. (2) Establishes criteria for the Committee’s review of State agency regulations. (3) Establishes a process for the Committee’s review and oversight of State agency regulations, including the requirement of a staff report, public hearings, and Committee recommendations to the General Assembly. (4) If the Committee recommends a regulation not be allowed to expire, requires the Committee to draft and introduce a bill that removes the expiration of each regulation the Committee recommends not be allowed to expire. (5) The Committee Chair, Vice Chair, and members receive the same additional compensation as the Joint Legislative Oversight and Sunset Committee.

Maddy summaryThis resolution formally recognizes April 2025 as "Parkinson's Disease Awareness Month" in Delaware. It does not create new laws or allocate funds but serves as an official state acknowledgment of Parkinson's disease. The resolution highlights the disease's impact through cited statistics (e.g., ~2,000 Delaware diagnoses in 2024) and emphasizes the importance of awareness and research. It directly affects Delaware residents by promoting public recognition of Parkinson's disease, though it has no binding policy requirements. The resolution passed unanimously in both legislative chambers on March 25, 2025.