701-566-9300ADD is the new Agriculture Diversification and Development fund which was pitched yesterday to Senate Appropriations. This effort to support value-added projects would start with the Bank of North Dakota looking at a proposal. If it met their qualifications but needed a bit more help with the bottom line, they would forward the proposal to the ADD board which this bill (HB1475) would create. Maybe it would be an animal feeding operation or a crush plant, for instance. Hopefully it will get the go ahead.
The DOT budget bill (SB2012) adopted an amendment today which would show legislative intent that the DOT utilize E-15 and biodiesel when practical.
And NDSU Extension and Research is included in this writing because it was supposed to be done. Instead, the House Appropriations E&E subcommittee that handles the bill (SB2020) scheduled it for four days of hearings this week, alarming yours truly. Sure enough, when they met this morning, Chair Monson said something to the effect that leadership told them they needed to cut some. He started with $200,000 but the committee was reluctant to shave anything so he declared SB2020 done for the third time. You may have noticed that all three of the above are in Appropriations committees and that is what will happen from now on until policy committees will begin to reconcile differences in their bills in Conference Committees. This will go on until the final big money /agency budget bills are agreed upon and the session will end. Leadership is shooting for about three weeks from now.
