701-566-9300Murphy’s Law Blog 2017 | #10
Eight hundred nine pieces of legislation were “dropped in the hopper” or introduced this month. Other than a possible Delayed Bill or two, that should be it. Now it’s about survival in some form or another to avoid extinction. Very few bills that become law are able to ditch alterations. Maybe in Nebraska (the only state with one chamber) it happens less, I dunno. My point is simply that from...
Murphy’s Law Blog 2017 | #9
A lot going on that has effect on producers these past two days. Yesterday in the Senate Ag Committee were two bills that took the entire day. The first, SB2245, was about 45 minutes long and is a farmer-friendly idea about using state owned land for wetland mitigation by creating a kind of wetlands bank. The idea is that a farmer who wants to make a swap could potentially use public land. One...
Murphy’s Law Blog 2017 | #8
Today was a big step in reduction of property taxes for ND. This bill, SB2206, is the culmination of an effort that began in 1997 to take responsibility for state mandates that the counties had to pay for where Social Services were concerned. Last session had a buy back for program services and this bill eliminates the 20 mill Social Services levy so that counties cannot backfill. The intent...
Murphy’s Law Blog 2017 | #7
It’s been kind of a long week and its Tuesday. This is nearly the end of new bills dropping as 40 came in last night. From now on there are only delayed bills and that means single digits at most. So it is done raining bills and we will understand the bigger picture to a greater degree by the end of next week or so. There are some gorillas in the room concerning Agriculture, though.
Last week...
Murphy’s Law Blog 2017 | #6
Yesterday, the House Ag Committee heard testimony on the Public Service Commission elevator bill (HB1126). I had to be hopping in and out of that one to cover some of the Human Services budget hearings – as the largest single budget of our state government it is deemed relevant to try to understand at least at a basic level- and, much more directly relevant, the Quick Take bill (SB2047). That...
Murphy’s Law Blog 2017 | #5
Today the joint Ag committees (both House and Senate) meet and listen all morning to ND Agricultural Experiment Station and NDSU Extension Service priorities. This happens every session and I was involved as a senator on Ag committee back in 2011 so I know what the freshmen legislators are going through as program after program is explained.
As producers, you might be interested to know that...
Murphy’s Law Blog 2017 | #3
I woke up last night thinking of how to explain what goes on in the ND Capitol during the legislative session. Not that you growers are lacking in intelligence in any way, but one does need to be there for a while to grasp the nature of that whirlwind. Starting out these first two weeks in January as another set of eyes for your benefit leads me to say that it is certainly different than my...
Murphy’s Law Blog 2017 | #2
Blog #2 You probably know the ND Public Service Commission (PSC) regulates elevators/grain dealers. You may know that the PSC eliminated the Licensing Director and is re-configuring those responsibilities into a Compliance Director that will spend one-third of their time on licensing. You might be aware they have introduced bill HB1126 which upon passage would also take away an inspector...
Murphy’s Law Blog
This is the beginning of an effort to let soybean growers know what is happening in the North Dakota Legislature that could have direct or indirect consequences for your operation. My name is Phil Murphy and I was the state Senator until last month for much of the area between Fargo and Grand Forks – prime soybean country. The Growers have contracted with me to work with their long-time...