Blog

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...

This is all about tomorrow’s (Tuesday’s) hearing for bill SB2020. All of those topics in the headline have times for the House Appropriations Education and Environment division to listen to reasons why they should keep the Senate’s funding levels. The Governor asked for a 15 percent reduction in this budget and the Senate restored it to previous levels and included...

House Bill 1026 is the vehicle for modernizing the grain inspection and warehouse regulation sides of the industry. After much gnashing of teeth for several sessions, two years ago oversight was passed from the Public Service Commission to the North Dakota Department of Agriculture. The interim committee chaired by Representative Dennis Johnson – a farmer – got all the...

The effort of bringing disparate parties together to hammer out tiling law was moved forward by the House this week. HB1437 was passed unanimously over to the Senate for its judgement on the matter. I have said it before and it bears repeating; we get better laws with less fighting in the Legislature when someone cares enough to get those involved in the dispute to work...

Bill HB1183 was passed in the House today while the Corn and Soybean Expo is going on. Last year in the Fargodome, I spoke to the lunch crowd about the issue this bill has finally addressed because we all have to deal with wastewater and many of us with septic systems. HB1183 sets up uniform practices for local health units and installers which should alleviate the...

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...