Legislative Update 4-17

Posted by Nick Colglazier on Apr 17, 2012 in Farm Bureau | 0 comments

Happy Tax Day! I hope everyone has everything in to the tax man as it is the last day to file your taxes or extension. Last week the House spent their time crunching numbers as they pored through the state budget. After many hours of work the budget, or as we affectionately know it as the “long bill”, passed on an unprecedented 64-1 vote. The budget will now head over to the Senate for more debate, but while that happens the House will get back to business.

Yesterday the Senate committees met with the Joint Budget Committee to hear about the budgets for their committees respective departments. Today, the Senate broke so that the democrats and republicans could caucus on the bill before it is debated on the Senate floor. By the end of the week, hopefully we will see the budget pass the Senate and be able to head to a conference committee.

Now that the long bill is in the Senate the House can get back to the work of the State. Yesterday the House debated HB-1317, the Parks and Wildlife Commission, on the floor and after much debate it ended up with 3 sportsman, 3 from agriculture, 3 parks and rec and 2 at-large. It still has one more vote to go in the House before it can make its way to the Senate and Farm Bureau will continue to work hard on this bill.

Also, yesterday Farm Bureau was invited to the signing of two bills we helped pass this year. The first was SB-59, which will exempt larger vehicles up to 26,001 pounds from the commercial vehicle standards making it easier for our farmers and ranchers when transporting their goods. The second was HB-1083, a bill that will extend the environmental ag program.

That does it for now. Remember to check in on the Colorado Farm Bureau Facebook page and follow @agrilobby tweets to get the latest updates and the bill-tracking list to see all of the legislation CFB is following. I hope y’all have a great week. Take care!