Blunt lists four goals for final two weeks

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- With less than two weeks remaining in the legislative session, Gov. Blunt is pushing for passage of four priorities, including an ethanol requirement for gasoline, tougher sentences for child sex offenders and restrictions on the use of eminent domain.

His other priority: enactment of a spending plan for the more than $450 million expected over the next several years from a proposed asset sale by Missouri's quasi-governmental student loan authority.

Blunt, who outlined his priorities Tuesday, said the prospects for passage look good before the session ends May 12.

With the exception of the sale by the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, which developed a few weeks later, Blunt has been promoting the proposals since before his Jan. 11 State of the State speech.

He lobbied several senators Monday evening to support the spending plan for the MOHELA assets. Senators voted 22-10 early Tuesday to pass the legislation, which directs most of the money toward campus construction projects and lesser amounts to health clinics, debt repayment and a business enticement fund.

A version passed previously by the House had directed some of the MOHELA money toward a new $1,000 scholarship for college freshman. The House linked the scholarship to a separate bill capping annual increases in both tuition and state funding for higher education institutions.

But the tuition and funding caps were stripped in the Senate.

Blunt said a compromise version of the bill is unlikely to contain the strict caps backed by the House. But "the final legislation will have some parameters surrounding the new scholarship that will help control the rising costs of college for Missouri families," Blunt said.

The new scholarships and college construction both are necessary, Blunt said. But rather than funding the scholarship with the MOHELA proceeds, the latest plan calls for them to be funded with general state tax revenues.

Blunt said he liked the latest legislative proposal for requiring a 10 percent ethanol blend in most gasoline. He also praised a bill that is intended to make it harder to condemn private property for redevelopment by other private entities and to increase the compensation property owners receive.

The House and Senate have proposed different versions of legislation that would impose harsher penalties on people convicted of sex offenses against children. Blunt said he prefers a Senate version that would require mandatory 25-year prison sentences for some crimes followed by lifetime monitoring by Global Positioning System tracking devices.