LEGISLATIVE BULLETIN - January 15, 2003

The 58^th regular North Dakota Legislative Assembly is little more than a week old, and already there are 676 measures introduced.  Those include 345 House bills, 208 Senate bills, and 23 Resolutions.  Fortunately, most of them are not of direct or even peripheral interest to the Grain Dealers Association.  Some that are, and their status, are shown below.  For reading convenience these are in numerical order.  House Bills are 1---, Senate Bills are 2---, House Resolutions are 3---, and Senate Resolutions are 4---.  You can look up the text of any of these measures on the Legislative Council website at http://www.state.nd.us/lr/.  Under Legislative Assembly, click on 58^th (2003) for access to information on legislators, their Email addresses, bills and resolutions, hearing schedules and more.  To read a particular bill, click on Bills and Resolutions.  Scroll to the bottom of that page and click on House Bills or Senate Bills or House Resolutions or Senate Resolutions or whatever you want.

            The bill numbers of most importance are underlined.

·        HB 1019 is the Department of Commerce budget which includes the new ethanol subsidy. 

• HB 1021 is the NDSU Extension, Research, Transportation Institute and Northern Crops Institute budget.
• HB 1026 creates a Transgenic Wheat Board made up of the Governor, a few farmers, a few agricultural academic persons with doctoral degrees, a representative of the grain elevator industry, one from the grain transportation industry, the Ag Commissioner, Seed Commissioner and the Wheat Commission. It has the authority to collect information on genetically modified wheat and make recommendations for any regulatory or legislative change at both the state and federal levels.  It does not have any authority to control the release of genetically modified wheat seed.  Scheduled for hearing at 10:15 a.m. on Jan. 16 in House Ag.

• HB 1066 extends the Project Safe Send pesticide and pesticide container collection program.  NDGDA supports.
• HB 1157 is a PSC bill about grain warehouses, grain buyers, condo storage – some positive changes, some housekeeping.  Reviewed with PSC by NDGDA Board and no objections.   Scheduled for hearing at 9:00 a.m. on Jan. 17 in House Ag.
• HB 1194 protects farmers from liability if thieves are injured stealing anhydrous from their tanks.  Scheduled for hearing at 11:00 a.m. on Jan. 23 in House Ag.  See HB 1222 below.
  
• HB 1197 creates an indemnity fund to protect holders of credit sale contracts.  It proposes a checkoff of 0.2% of value on all credit sale contracts – deferred payments and delayed pricing.  Payoff to farmers would be 80% of contract value up to a maximum of $100,000 from each elevator.  The NDGDA Board has taken the position that if the farmers want and will pay for it, and if the checkoff is no more difficult to administer than current commodity checkoffs, we will not oppose.   Scheduled for hearing at 9:00 a.m. on Jan. 23 in House Ag
• HB 1222 protects the farmers and dealers from liability if thieves are injured stealing anhydrous from their tanks.  This is the better bill over HB 1194.  No hearing set yet.
• HB 1291 says that abandoned railroad right-of-way must be offered first to a grain or potato warehouse on the site, then to adjoining land owners, and finally for public use.

• HB 1310 limits the assessed valuation of grain elevators purchased for non-commercial use to the purchase price or fair market value.  This is to get around situations where local taxing authorities continue to carry the structures at very unrealistic values.  Reducing those values may make the property more valuable for sale in the first place. 
• HB 1313 imposes a 3% excise tax on the sale of special fuels sold for railroad purpose, with half the money going into the highway distribution fund and half to local rail projects. 
• HB 1314 changes the definition of “excavation” to allow for a 24-inch depth for ag activities, such as soil sampling, instead of the current 18 inches. 

• SB 2008 is the PSC budget which includes $250,000 to start the process of a rail rate complaint.  Hearing scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Jan. 20 in Senate Appropriations.
• SB 2027 requires that all gasoline having an octane rating of 87 be blended with ethanol at 10%. 
• SB 2077 requires employers to give up to 12-months leave for birth of a child, adoption or employee’s serious health condition.  This needs watching.  This bill was heard on Jan 10 in Senate Government and Veterans Affairs.   

• SB 2082 changes the definition of chemical operators. 
• SB 2110 has to do with registration and inspection fees of fertilizers and soil conditioners.  Appears to be no problem.  This bill was heard on Jan 9 in Senate Ag.
• SB 2111 has to do with licensing of anhydrous facilities and needs additional analysis.

• SB 2112 has to do with PSC fees for registration and inspection fees for testing scales and measuring devices.  There are some increases in here that will affect grain elevators. 
• SB 2113 addresses weighing and measuring requirements for anhydrous.  It eventually eliminates legal use of percent gauges. 
• SB 2124 is about noxious weed seed tolerances.  It was first heard at 9:30 a.m. on Jan. 9 in Senate Ag.