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Montana Legislature

Ever picture Hillary Clinton cranking turns at Snowbowl? Or Barack Obama snowmobiling in Drummond? What about Rudy Giuliani at the Wolf Point Stampede?

These might be the delightfully embarrassing campaign photo-ops forced upon presidential candidates if a bill to move up Montana’s presidential primary election makes it through the Legislature.

The bill resembles similar legislation across the nation as states scramble for a piece of the attention and power accorded New Hampshire and Iowa. A presidential candidate’s performance in those first primaries can make or break a campaign. [more]

Montana Legislature

UPDATE: 4-16-07 2:30pm
Sidney Republican Walter McNutt's House Bill 831 passed the Senate Natural Resources Committee, 5 to 4, along party lines with Democrats in support.

The Committee passed a number of minor amendments to the bill as well.

HB831 now heads to the Democrat-controlled Senate for a hearing later this week.

Stay tuned to this space for coverage of the Senate debate.
[more]

Montana Legislature

The Montana Legislature’s formal rejection of the Federal Real ID act seems poised to go before the governor for signing.

After little debate today, the House passed, 82 to 18, the Senate-amended version of Bozeman Democrat Brady Wiseman’s HB 287. [more]

Legislature May Create Interim Study on Issue

After another packed hearing on the issue, the House Fish, Wildlife and Parks Committee Tuesday night voted, 13 to 6, to kill a bill that would have clarified public access to Montana's streams from county bridges.

Prior to voting on Senate Bill 78, Libby Republican Chas Vincent offered an amendment to change the bill’s language and set up an interim committee to study the issue for two years. But Billings Democrat Kendall Van Dyk, who supported the bill, quickly moved to table it, saying Vincent’s changes altered the bill’s intent and basically punted the problem downfield for the 2009 legislature to deal with.

Previous hearings on the bill have been crowded, emotional affairs with anglers on one side and on the other, landowners and representatives of the Montana Stockgrowers Association and the Farm Bureau Federation saying the bill was a “compromise” that didn’t involve them. Tuesday's hearing was no different.

The issue triggers something in Montanans that reaches at firmly-held ideas on the sanctity of private property, the public’s right to access rivers, and the subtle erosion of Western courtesy which seems the result of an influx of out-of-state landowners. [more]

Montana Legislature

Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s “Clean and Green” energy initiative lasted about as long in the legislature as the lap he took around the Capitol driveway in an electric car on the day he introduced it.

Senate Democrats today attempted a “blast” motion, to bring Senate Bill 562 onto the floor for a debate after it was tabled 7-2 Saturday in the Senate Taxation Committee.

The blast motion failed, 25 to 25, with all Republicans and Trout Creek Democrat Jim Elliott, Senate Taxation Committee Chairman, voting against it.

Schweitzer said his initiative, the cornerstone of his energy policy, would trigger billions of dollars in investment and create thousands of jobs, particularly in eastern Montana.

“It was not an easy vote to make, it was not a pleasant vote to make, but it was a vote based on principle,” Elliott said. [more]

Legislative Water Woes

UPDATE: House Bill 844 by Rep. Debby Barrett, R-Dillon, failed a House vote Monday, 47 to 53, with 4 Republicans and all Democrats opposed.

In the Montana Legislature’s waning weeks, the fight for the state’s most precious resource – water – is just ramping up.

The question of who gets the rights to the groundwater in Montana’s fastest-growing valleys has the potential to profoundly affect the economic, agricultural and recreational future of the state.

Without the ability to dig new wells to service growing towns and subdivisions, Montana’s economic growth will stagnate, developers say. But farmers and ranchers argue that their seniority must be protected from municipal development while still allowing them the flexibility to dig new wells for irrigation.

In a Legislature otherwise hobbled by bitter partisanship, two House Republicans are facing-off over how to tackle the problem. The result could be one of the most important achievements of the session – or rank among its deepest disappointments. [more]

I wish I was a little bit taller ...

It’s not every day you attend an event where you can see the Speaker of the Montana House stretching his groin and the Senate President ripping his sport coat off screaming in someone’s face. And, the antics did not have anything to do with tax cuts, gun rights or that whole budget thing.

Wednesday night the aroma of Icy Hot was on the air, knee, ankle and elbow braces were donned, and the “pfft-pfft-pfft” of nylon pants filled the Capital High School gymnasium for the 15th Biennial Legislative Basketball Championship.

And lawmakers, for a change, played nice. [more]

Montana Legislature

After debating more than one hundred amendments Monday night, the House Natural Resources Committee passed, 12 to 4, a bill allowing the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation to issue new groundwater permits in closed basins.

Sound obscure? The bill could have a profound effect on everyone from developers to farmers to fishermen to boaters. In short, this bill could be among the most important pieces of legislation to emerge from a session, at this point, widely regarded as dysfunctional.

As growth explodes throughout the West, lawmakers must protect Montana’s water against out-of-state interests, said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Walter McNutt, R-Sidney.

“I think we’re behind the curve in Montana and if we don’t take care of our water my feeling is that somebody will take care of it for us,” McNutt added. “They haven’t got any place else to get it.”

UPDATE: Tuesday afternoon a second groundwater bill was introduced by Rep. Debby Barrett, R-Dillon. House Bill 844 is scheduled to bypass House Natural Resources and go before House Appropriations Wednesday. Stay tuned for more on the hearing and how the two bills shake out. [more]

Montana Legislature

At this stage of the legislature, any bill still alive has already undergone a number of hearings.

So at those hearings for bills which cast conservation groups on one side, and the extractive resource industries on another, speakers can now anticipate the opposition’s arguments. They knowingly shake their heads or roll their eyes or smile in exasperation as familiar talking points are rattled off.

Such was the case Monday as representatives of Montana’s petroleum, trucking and gas station industries lined up to oppose a bill mandating that diesel fuel contain a portion of biodiesel.

Introducing his bill to the House Transportation Committee, Sen. John Brueggeman, R-Polson, made clear his motivations were not purely environmental.

“Make no mistake,” he said. “It’s not like I’ve taken Al Gore as my lord and savior.” [more]

Montana Legislature

Before Friday’s hearing for a bill to instruct the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation how to issue groundwater permits in closed basins, a small group sat near the door listening to a song on a CD player.

It’s a jaunty new country tune titled, “A Montana Water Rights Ballad.”

While simply reading the lyrics doesn’t do justice to the melody written by Frosty Erben of Billings, the chorus does describe the feelings of some of the bill’s opponents:

“Keep a moving guy, Don’t ya listen to their lie, We gotta wonder why,
“They’ve made a plan so sly for water.
“People can’t you see that the DNRC wants our water runnin’ free.
“Leavin’ nothing there for you and me … water,
“Cool, Well, Water.”

Every bit as political as a Dixie Chicks number with none of the production value. [more]

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