Murphy’s Law Blog

This year the title was Water, Roads and Agriculture Working Together and it was held in Grand Forks. Much of the full day was spent educating Water Resource District (WRD) managers about what happened in this previous legislative session. Senator Mark Weber was the lone legislator in attendance as the water related bills were discussed along with the bonding and...

When I last wrote you the first part of May, I mentioned $10 million for townships. Now that the math has been done ($10 million divided by the number of Congressional Townships) it comes out to slightly over $6,000 per township. That money will be released by the State Treasurer on August 1, 2021. Also, your township will be receiving $214 per mile of road maintained. No...

On Friday, April 30, shortly after midnight, Senator Holmberg finished explaining HB1015 – the OMB budget bill with the many riders attached. It passed unanimously and the 67th session ended. While a lot was going on these past two days, to me the most significant measure for rural ND and Agriculture was millions of dollars for township roads. As Holmberg quipped in his...

This morning, Day 74 of the 67th Legislative session, saw subsurface water management (tiling) pass unanimously on the Senate floor. The issue that had held it up was notification to water boards on projects less than 80 acres. The conference committee settled on a two year period of trying it out – called a Sunset provision – so that next session, if they liked the data...

After several conference committee meetings, today a compromise was agreed upon. HB1437 will require reporting of, but no permit for, tiling of agricultural land less than 80 acres in size. This was agreed upon because time was running out to reach agreement and/ or mostly because reporting of less than 80 was attached in an amendment under a sunset clause which will...

Just this Thursday morning, SB2144-the posting bill-was passed on the House side with only 3 dissenting votes. We can pretty much put this one to bed and thank all of the participants. Uniformity for local health units as well as installers where wastewater management is concerned has also been passed and is headed for the Governor. Township road funding is now looking at...

Tuesday was Day 69 and by all accounts it is heading well into next week when 73 days had been the hope. It may be that this Friday will not count even though legislators will be working because they may not hammer in on a floor session which allows them to “cheat” on counting days. This would be done because there are many Conference Committees that need to agree on the...

Late last Friday, HB1475 was approved at a level of $10 million for supporting the new Agriculture Development and Diversification (ADD) fund. It sets up a board that will review loans and grants from the fund which have already been looked at by the Bank of North Dakota. Hopefully there are some entrepreneurs that will be aware and eligible to help our industry move...

SB2144 is the bill that brings forward the agreement reached by the Interim committee. It seems best practice that a Legislature simply accept bills crafted over an interim by all parties, but it rarely is the case. As a legislator said to me this morning, “You have to give input if you really think it is right.” And of course, one must. But it really messes things up...

HB1475 passed out of the Senate yesterday and we are hoping that the House will concur with the changes. This bill creates the ADD fund spelled out in the title and it is currently $10 million for loans and up to 25% of that in grants per biennium. It started out at $150 million; the House Approps cut it to $5 million and the Senate to $10 million. The Conference...

The Legislature has entered its third phase which is when all the committee hearings are done and the bills go to Conference Committees to reconcile any differences. This Monday morning, the massive $1.6 billion budget for the Department of Transportation was passed by the House in bill SB2012. Included was a new section that encourages the state fleet to utilize ethanol,...

HB1431 was just passed out of Senate Appropriations at warp speed when it was not even on the agenda. Senator Poolman moved to take all of the Senate Finance and Tax amendments out so that the Senate can vote to approve the bill as it came from the House. It was unanimously approved and that almost certainly means that the following will come to law: $435.5 million for...

If you had heard of SB2324, it was a bill Senator Terry Wanzek brought which got a lot of Township, County and Water people talking. A matter of enforcing the law, a constituent was frustrated and pointed out an injustice when a culvert needed to be replaced or right-sized. Law states that the local government is responsible in some cases but if that political subdivision...

ADD is the new Agriculture Diversification and Development fund which was pitched yesterday to Senate Appropriations. This effort to support value-added projects would start with the Bank of North Dakota looking at a proposal. If it met their qualifications but needed a bit more help with the bottom line, they would forward the proposal to the ADD board which this bill...

We now will have some uniformity in our wastewater systems including installation of septic systems due to the passage of HB1183. It sets up a board consisting of local health authorities and installers of septic systems so that many of the inconsistencies of both can be minimized. It should eventually lead to fewer problems for our rural residents and better the health...

Township roads, near and dear to agriculture, have surfaced as an area of interest this session. There are at least a few bills that have some dollars intended for them. One was dealt with in the late afternoon yesterday in Senate Finance and Tax – HB1431. This is one of the big bonding bills to survive and came over from the House with around $700 million in it...

Okay, Day 48 of what some are saying will be a 72 day session and the dragged-back subsurface water management bill had extensive hearings on Day 47 and a decision Friday. The Senate Ag committee amended out that tilers don’t have to notify their Water Resource Districts if the project is less than 80 acres and draining into their own slough. If draining into an...

This is Day 47 of what is trying to be a 75 day or less Legislative Session. Last week there was valid reason to be hopeful of a 70 day run, but being this is a very human cauldron/beehive activity, predictions are only that. Ag policy was thought to be done (and it is on the House side) last Friday as we thought there was only HB1475 to be discussed when Senate Ag meets...

Yesterday saw the passage of SB2216, a bill which clarified where to begin measuring for setbacks of an animal feeding operation. Perhaps that will help whenever these value-added projects are applying for permits. Subsurface drainage (tiling) was moved forward today when the Senate Agricultural committee unanimously approved HB1437 for a Do Pass recommendation to the...

The session is busy with both houses concerning agricultural issues this week; however that is about to change as the House Ag committee chair told the Ag Coalition breakfast this morning that they will have no more bills after this Friday. The NDSGA has submitted 17 different testimonies on bills this week alone and what follows is a quick rundown of many of them: Two...