Murphy’s Law Blog

Today the House floor convincingly passed a 3 cent-per-gallon gas tax. What?!? You heard me. There had been whisperings of so much money coming for transportation infrastructure from Federal COVID funds that it might overcome the need to raise the $7.4 million per penny tax. The question as I see it is; Does one want to vote on what the state can do for ourselves and know...

The bonding success story relates to the Friday passage of HB1431 by the House floor at about a three to one ratio. This margin of support surprised many as the House not only quashed a Republican bonding bill of $1.1 billion in the second week of the session but also stripped out about $100 million from HB1431 before passing it yesterday. With hundreds of millions of...

NDSU’s Extension and Research budget is in bill SB2020. The Governor had cut their budget by 15 percent and today the Senate spoke loudly in opposition to his proposal by passing unanimously their counter-proposal which re-instated Extension and Research’s budget to levels of last year. That is what E&R had asked for. Not only that, but SB2020 as of now has also...

Well, policy bills are slowing down in committees – almost done. Now Appropriations committees make their recommendations to the floor. The House is really piled up as they have debated social issues at length, keeping their Calendar for floor action pretty full. With a couple hundred bills more to act on than the Senate (they have twice as many members) they do seem to...

It is Friday and because the House had almost one hundred bills to act on, it was scheduled until 4:30 p.m. when they usually leave for the trip home around 2 p.m. I was ready to listen until the wee hours, but by golly, the powers that be hung it up at 2:02 p.m. anyway. TGIF, I guess. This morning, the full House Appropriations committee sent HB1431 out with a Do Pass...

HB1431 is the House bonding bill which contains $50 million for the Agricultural Products Development Center and the Northern Crops Institute. It was preserved in Appropriations the other day while $95 million for a Career Tech Ed center was stripped out along with other items. So hope remains for this important project although it still must pass the House floor vote...

So. On Friday morning as stated in the last entry, House Agriculture heard the beef checkoff (HB1487) testimonies, coming back after lunch and floor session to listen to many who had waited all morning to testify in opposition. Not all were heard, but it was pretty well vetted. When most legislators have to travel back home on Friday afternoon in the winter – often 4 or...

Bill HB1087 is about a program which was instituted two years ago in North Dakota. Called reinsurance, it allows our state to capture federal dollars to lower health insurance premiums for individuals who cannot qualify for a pool-type of policy. Last biennium, it was reported to save our citizens about 20 percent on their policies. This was referred to House...

Officially one-fourth of the way through this session and it seems that velocity is accelerating. By that I mean hearings are piling up and so are judgements that need to be made by the committees and, of course, then by the floor in each house. There are so many bills that want to use bonding and part of the earnings of the Legacy Fund that it will be a heavy lift for...

Animal feeding operations have had problems getting established in our state compared to others for a host of reasons. One bill that is intended to reduce confusion addressed zoning in the form of SB2216. The Senate Ag committee dealt with it Thursday and today. They gave a unanimous Do Pass Recommendation to this bill which clarifies where any entity can begin to measure...

Tomorrow (Thursday) morning, the Senate Ag committee will be hearing SB2216 at 9:00 AM. As far as anyone can tell, this bill helps clarify zoning boundaries so that anyone who is trying to set up an animal feeding operation will know where to begin measuring setback distances from. There is a bill, SB2245, which addresses some funding for bolstering the intermodal...

Here we are at Legislative Day #13 and starting to get some idea of how things are going this session. One area of agreement that efforts during the Interim helped settle is that of Grain Inspection and related issues. That bill, HB1026, passed the House floor today with no dissenting votes. Congratulations to all who have helped get to this point. It would be highly...

The Agricultural world (okay – North Dakota’s version) pretty much hopped onto the internet Wednesday to testify in favor of supporting a hold even budget for several entities helping producers in relation to NDSU. The Main Station and branch research stations, the Extension Service, Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, Extension Service, Northern Crops Institute...

The $1.1 billion bonding bill which held so much hope for transportation infrastructure was ditched because of what I have heard was lack of support from House leaders who felt that bonding for water projects that last a long time was more appropriate. How more funding for transportation will be pursued remains to be seen. COVID-19 has been in the news here in what is now...

In my last blog I explained what the four posting bills did and what was expected to happen on Thursday. Thankfully, it worked out. What that means is that the electronic posting study (which had only about a half year or less for a trial run) will continue in bill 2036 if the Senate Natural Resources committee’s recommendation for a Do Pass is followed by the floor. Then...

Tomorrow (Jan. 14, 2021) in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee will be a hearing on all four bills dealing with posting – both physical and electronic – and trespass laws. Senator Erbele, a rancher and farmer from south central North Dakota, has been taking the legislative lead on this for a few years now and has been determined to end the long running...

Yesterday, the Senate Appropriations committee heard SB2012 – the DOT budget – and from North Dakota Department of Transportation Director Bill Panos. He understands the Federal highway funding arena very well having come from the same position in Wyoming. One of the fundamental points he stressed is that the more funding flows through the DOT, the greater amount...

Finance and Tax on the House side heard testimony on HB1080 which is about oil and gas companies paying what is owed to our State Trust Lands Department. The Department had made the news in the past year for what some companies had said was too onerous a penalty when catching up after not paying fully what was owed. Testimony indicated they could add a charge of up to 30...

Hello there, citizens interested in state policy. Similar to the past four years, I will be posting my blog on what is going on in the 67th North Dakota Legislative Assembly as it pertains to you, our ND Soybean Growers. The machinery is in motion and the first bills have been assigned committee hearing times. Of particular interest to most ag producers is bill 1026 which...

December 17th was the final meeting for the new Transportation Coalition before the legislative session starts in less than three weeks. We heard from Senate Majority Leader Rich Wardner who presented slides explaining what he would like to do for infrastructure. Using bonding and leaving the General Fund alone, his proposal for using Legacy Fund earnings (not the...