Things are getting a little serious on Goat Hill as Senate Republicans played hardball on Tuesday, cutting off debate and passing several bills.

There are only five working days left in the Alabama Legislative session.

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Get well, Guv

Gov. Kay Ivey had a procedure performed to remove fluid that was pressing against her lung, reports AL.com's Mike Cason.

According to the governor's press office, Ivey has had discomfort on her left side for three weeks. The press office said it wasn't an emergency but a situation Ivey wanted to have taken care of so she could recover for the end of the legislative session.

She's being watched at Baptist Medical Center South in Montgomery.

Ivey is 81 years old and has worked through a handful of health situations during her record-long tenure as governor. In 2019 she was treated for lung cancer, and an oncologist declared she had been cured. In 2024, her staff said she was treated for dehydration at a campaign event.

Gulf drilling vs. Rice's whales

The so-called "God Squad" has exempted oil and gas companies from endangered species laws in the Gulf of Mexico, reports AL.com's Margaret Kates.

The "God Squad" is what people have called the Endangered Species Committee because it holds the power to make the decision that could allow a species to go extinct.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was actually behind this effort and the rare meeting of the committee. Hegseth said he was told that Gulf drilling was being obstructed by litigation over endangered species and that the litigation was an effort to fully end Gulf drilling. He claimed that the offshore work, which supplies 15% of U.S. domestic energy production, is important to national security.

According to committee chair and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, the defense secretary's claim that national security is at stake legally binds the committee to approving his request to exempt the companies from endangered-species laws.

And according to the Center for Biological Diversity, this is the first time a defense secretary has used his power to do that.

Of the endangered species in the Gulf, conservationists are particularly concerned with the Rice's whale. There are an estimated 51 Rice's Whales left, and it's the species of concern in legal actions taken against the oil and gas industries.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has found that oil and gas activities are jeopardizing the whale's continued existence. It has proposed ways to protect the whale, including slower vessel speeds around the whales and the use of whale-detecting technology.

Because of the committee's exemption, however, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Neil Jacobs said those protections won't be put into place.

Meanwhile, the Center for Biological Diversity said it plans to legally challenge Hegseth's argument that the exemption was necessary for national security.

Speeding up the state Senate

With only six working days left in this year's Alabama Legislative session, Senate Republicans flexed their supermajority muscle to bypass debate on some measures Tuesday, reports AL.com's Mike Cason.

The Republicans don't often go the cloture route. Recall that last year the Democrats used the Senate filibuster late in the session to block some of the late bills being pushed by Republicans.

That wasn't going to happen Tuesday. Among measures that passed was the bill that essentially means the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency can take control of Montgomery's police department if it doesn't employ a minimum number of police officers -- around 380 -- by the year 2031.

It was sponsored by Sen. Will Barfoot, a Republican who represents part of the city, and it came over the objections by other Montgomery officials. Another state senator who represents part of Montgomery, Democrat Kirk Hatcher, was allowed to speak after the vote: "I am absolutely beside myself, beside myself for the people in Montgomery and beside myself because they didn't get a voice today."

The measure now moves to the House of Representatives.

Also pushed through the Senate without debate Tuesday was the bill to require public schools in grades 5-12 to display the Ten Commandments, which also now moves to the House, and a bill requiring limited audits of election results after every general election. That one goes to the governor's desk to be signed into law.

The Senate also passed the bill to require state and local entities to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America" on newly created maps, documents, educational materials, websites, official communications and other resources. Supporters of that movement say the new name celebrates America's greatness while opponents say it just serves the purpose of flattering President Trump by supporting one of his vanity projects.

Whether it's one of those things or both, it's on the way to Kay Ivey's desk.

Note that it specifically does not prohibit schools or teachers from using the term "Gulf of Mexico" within a larger course of academic instruction when reasonable for historical purposes.

More Alabama and national politics

Quoting

"I said I want my own marketing rights. You're not going to catch me on the damn stadium steps doing a Kia commercial."

Nick Saban, co-owner of nine Mercedes-Benz dealerships, on product endorsements when he was the football coach at Alabama.

By the Numbers

23%, 21%, 19%

According to the latest statewide survey from The Alabama Poll, that's how tightly the top three Alabama GOP candidates for U.S. Senate were polling. They are, in order: U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and the biggest surprise, former Navy Seal Jared Hudson's, who ran and lost the race for a Jefferson County sheriff.

11,000

That's the estimated number of fentanyl pills -- along with more powder -- that law-enforcement officers seized during arrests in Dothan.

Born on This Date

In 1854, slave-turned-sharecropper and folk artist Bill Traylor of Lowndes County.

On the Podcast

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