CHAMPAIGN – Illinois farmers should take advantage of an innovative program to help protect their farmland and our environment, said Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Scott Bennett.

The S.T.A.R. program (Saving Tomorrow’s Agriculture Resources), provides free instruction on how to ensure Illinois feeds the world while reducing their environmental footprint.

“This program helps farmers lose less to runoff, earn more from their land, and preserve the state’s natural resources for the next generation,” said Bennett (D-Champaign).

The S.T.A.R. program ranks a farmer’s field according to how well it practices conservation, all with the foal of safeguarding local waterways and maximizing productivity per acre. Participants determine their S.T.A.R. ranking by completing a field form, which is scored by a local reviewer on a five-star scale.

SPRINGFIELD – Residents living in state-operated assisted living facilities would be allowed to install cameras in their rooms to monitor and deter possible abuse under a new law sponsored by State Senator Scott Bennett.

Bennett (D-Champaign) partnered with his uncle, State Rep. Tom Bennett (R-Gibson City), to make Community Integrated Living Arrangement (CILA) facilities safer for residents and to reassure their loved ones.

“The core of this bill is to protect some of the most vulnerable residents in our state,” Bennett said. “This new law provides residents in care facilities control by allowing them to monitor their personal space and gives family members comfort knowing that they or their loved are safe and protected.”

Under House Bill 344, a resident living in a CILA facility, a supervised home environment in which eight or fewer people with mental illness or developmental disabilities live together, would be allowed to electronically monitor their own room provided that their consent and notice has been given to the facility on prescribed forms.

CHAMPAIGN – A proposal by State Senator Scott Bennett (D-Champaign) to provide Illinois communities the protection they need from toxic coal ash pollution was signed into law today.

“This was about preventing coal ash waste from threatening our water and our communities throughout the state,” Bennet said. “I am relieved that we now have the protections, regulations and financial assurances in place that we need to prevent more coal ash crises from happening in Illinois."

The new law addresses the closure of waste pits across the state filled with coal ash, a toxic byproduct of burning coal. There are approximately 25 known coal ash impoundments which are already closed in the state.

Bennett’s measure would establish processes to address the other 50-plus impoundment sites which have yet to close.

It also creates a regulatory framework to ensure polluters, not taxpayers, pay for needed closure and cleanup, guarantees public participation and transparency around cleanups for affected communities and provides Illinois EPA the funds it needs to properly oversee closure and cleanup.

CHAMPAIGN – State Senator Scott Bennett (D-Champaign) joined Governor JB Pritzker at the University of Illinois’ Urbana campus today to talk about the urgently needed improvements to facilities the governor recently signed into law.

Dubbed “Rebuild Illinois,” the capital construction plan invests $2.9 billion to support Illinois’ nine universities and 50 community colleges, in addition to the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy.

“A lack of investment and a two-year budget impasse were devastating to our public university and community college system in Illinois,” Bennett said, who sits on the Senate Higher Education Committee. “I’m glad to see that Gov. Pritzker is committed to making the University of Illinois and our state leaders in higher education.”