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Weekly Legislative Update
By Jason | February 11, 2010
Rollercoaster ride, success, and more work to accomplish.
Mother Nature reminds all of us who has the ultimate authority on allowing Legislators to cast votes for or against legislation. The four-day weeks have been nice for me to be able to get back home to the farm and take care of business; however with the shortened week it has compacted our committee and floor discussion on legislation. I am proud to announce that I had my first House Bill pass the floor of the House of Representatives which is HB 1190 that will allow Career and Tech Education courses qualify along with world languages for the Opportunity Scholarship. 66 members of the State House of Representatives gave their solid support to send HB 1190 to the Senate for their consideration.
Our House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee continues to deal with various Game, Fish and Parks issues. I try to do my best to keep in mind the interest of landowners, sportsmen/women, and of course our wildlife. We have a lot of public hunting land in northeast South Dakota which provides opportunities for both residents and nonresident hunters. I do have concern from resident wildlife enthusiasts who want to be protective and not allow an opportunity for businesses and our State to raise some revenue from out of state hunters. I also think many landowners in northeastern South Dakota are more than willing to allow free hunting, as long as they know when and how many will be hunting in a party.
The House Local Government Committee dealt with an interesting piece of legislation last week that is House Bill 1212. This bill would allow counties to construct sewer utility systems. I thought it was a good bill, but it went down in defeat. The main purpose of the bill was for areas around Rapid City where small towns have merged together or where many people place houses/cabins in the country but only utilize a drain field/septic tank. The comparison introduced in committee is that counties already are allowed to construct and maintain landfills; why should a sewer system be any different? This is evidenced in Roberts County where we have a landfill that provides a service for the area communities, but also provides needed revenue.
I brought House Bill 1155 to the House Commerce Committee which is an effort to require the registration of anemometer (wind metering) towers. Invenergy Wind Company which happens to be developing the area between Summit and Sisseton was the only opponent to my bill. They do not want the information about the owner and location of these metering towers to be provided to the public. This surprised me, because I feel it is strictly a public safety issue for pilots; especially the crop duster pilots. The bill was tabled and in working with the half a dozen pilots who made the trip to Pierre to testify in favor of the bill I think we have a compromise worked out that will just require the towers to be properly marked with paint and guy wire balls.
House Bill 1060 finally surfaced for floor discussion in the House after a fiscal note (on the projected revenue increase) was received. Many landowners and wind energy enthusiasts expressed their dissatisfaction with HB 1060 which will adjust and repeal about half of the tax breaks for large industry projects. I have been opposed to this bill and continue to stress the importance that I think we should only look at repealing the tax break on oil pipelines; which is the reason why I brought House Bill 1246 that will repeal the tax breaks on oil pipelines. HB 1246 will have a hearing in the House Taxation Committee very soon. I did not support HB 1060 but it passed the House of Representatives on mostly a party-line vote.
This week has been very enjoyable for myself because many citizens have made the choice to come visit our State Capitol building and testify on behalf of legislation. My job as a legislator can be pretty easy when citizens tell their story and I enjoy being able to act more of as a facilitator. However, I have also learned that I need to continue to stand my ground and not settle for “good enough” when forging ahead with legislation; just like the early success we have with HB 1190.
Please continue to let me know your views on the issues. Our legislative process can be frustrating, but I also think it is a very beautiful process when proper rights are given to everyone involved. Don’t stand back and wait for someone else to get involved; you can make a difference.
Feel free to contact me at 773-3851, email me at rep.frerichs@state.sd.us; check out my website at www.jasonfrerichs.com for updates and you can also follow me on Twitter for active updates: www.twitter.com/jasonfrerichs.
State Representative Jason Frerichs
Democratic Whip
District 1 (Roberts, Day, and Marshall)
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