Blog

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...

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...

This week saw an hour Zoom with testimony from two business leaders who have recently traversed our state and stressed that North Dakota’s #1 business issue is workforce shortage. It was the last time this coalition will meet before the session begins and the bill passed last time to help incentivize students to pick and pay for an education that would help them with...

Your NDSGA has been a part of the fairly new Workforce Development group out of the Greater North Dakota Chamber as they work to find solutions to our state’s need for workers. Today’s presenter was Katie Ralston who is the new leader of the Commerce Department’s Workforce Division and she explained in detail to the group what Commerce is attempting to do coming up in the...

There are only a few Legislative Interim committees still to officially end their studies and today marked the end of Agriculture and Transportation work. They covered three topics with the first being a pilot project for road trains whereby the committee okayed a bill draft that would continue to push for the establishment of a pilot project. Once this bill comes up for...

The most relevant part of Interim Taxation’s last interim meeting for Agriculture was about transportation. Several people testified on this topic including NDDOT Director Bill Panos and other DOT staff as well as Tim Horner and others from the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute. NDDOT testified that we will suffer a dip in revenue from COVID-19 of around $21...

It had been since December of 2019 and in a different world when this Interim Legislative committee last met. Dealing with at least a few areas of interest to producers, here is the nitty gritty: SBARE Chair Mark Birdsall and NDSU Extension head Dr. Greg Lardy gave an update in which it was expressed that priority number one for the upcoming session is to hold onto the...

There is much more clarity when it comes to waste water/septic systems following recent hearings in Bismarck. Installers and regulators testified as well as counties. Everyone seems to want the state to set standards for how these systems are designed and installed and to license installers. Handling it would be the new split from the Health Dept. now titled Dept. of...

The ND Interim Legislative Commerce Committee met for the last time yesterday and covered several topics relevant to rural North Dakota and the Agricultural community. It was striking how much impact COVID-1919 has had on many of them – some positive, some negative. To begin, the ND University System testified to the progress of the ND Career Builders and Skilled Workforce...

Each year the Interim Energy Development and Transmission Committee visits the Grand Forks-based Energy and Environmental Research Center. This June it was virtual and our legislators were presented with some program updates. I listened in to see what might concern agriculture and there was plenty. One headache for farmers in the northern tier of counties is that there...