BISMARCK — North Dakota waterboarding, hunters and veterinarians. What could they possibly have in common, in the same discussion? Well, they are all things that were talked about in the first half of the legislative session.
You know, we’ve seen some successes, we had some disappointments. The reason we talk about waterboards is, we’ve had some uniform law changes to make clarifications to water management; good for North Dakota agriculture.
When we talk about veterinarians, we have a change that was successful the first half on making sure that when animals may be seized because of abuse or neglect, that an approved veterinarian has to sign off on the actual abuse or neglect, instead of just an arbitrary opinion by a complainer and a local law enforcement agent.
And the disappointment with a bill that got deemed an anti-hunting bill, which it was not, but the law that would have been put in place, had it passed, to give us inherent private property rights protection, failed the first half.
But a silver lining is the fact that there was several bills dealing with rioting and being in places that people shouldn’t be on private land. There was some enhancements made to the fines or the penalties involved with that. So albeit a very small win, with the emergency clause contained in those four bills, both chambers — the House and the Senate — passed those, and Governor Burgum signed them, making them effective immediately as law in North Dakota.
Now, coming forward, there was another bill that kind of slipped past pretty quickly on the first half and that was Senate Bill 2327, which basically creates a North Dakota EPA. In a time when we’re in a budget crisis, this probably isn’t a real smart move to separate and divide an agency and create a new monster, so to speak. And the way they did it, it went from hearing, to amendments to passing out of committee, in only an hour-and-a-half. And the statement made by a senator on the floor, saying “It’s not only D.C. that passes bills without reading them, but now we’re doing it here in North Dakota,” was very appropriate. And thank you Senator Erin Oban for mentioning the process and how quickly it got shoved to the next chamber.
That, folks, is what we’ll be taking a very strong look into as 2327 makes its way into the House, to make sure that we aren’t opening up an unknown can of environmental regulation that may be damaging to all of agriculture and North Dakota.
For questions or comments, please contact Dawn Smith-Pfeifer.
— Daryl Lies, President of North Dakota Farm Bureau
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