701-566-9300The 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 on something that can work for all. It is cooperation and compromise that move ideas forward in our system of government. We have been fortunate to see it this session embodied by Grain Inspection, Posting and now Water, to name prominent examples. Thank you to the legislators and those diverse parties for your work.
How to pay for infrastructure at adequate levels has brought bonding to the forefront this session and while there were several vying to be the vehicle only a few can be chosen. Earlier we saw HB1431 pass to the Senate and now they have sacrificed HB1037, SB2040 and HB1275 (amongst others) to promote HB1380, aka the Streaming Bill. It creates a Legacy Earnings Fund which puts the first $100 million into a legacy sinking and interest fund, the next $40 million goes to the clean sustainable energy fund and the next $40 million to the infrastructure revolving loan fund – but not an amount that would bring the balance of that fund to more than $500 million. There are other details, but that is the gist of it. More to come as we move now to the second period of three as all the surviving bills switch houses. See you Wednesday when they come back to work.
