Legislative Report: March 15, 2018

We have been involved in committee work recently that should be of interest to many of the citizens of District 23. There are a number of interim committees working on various issues.

Others, like the Administrative Rules Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Devlin, are busy reviewing new state agency rules. Many of those rules are based on legislation from the last legislative session. Rep. Vigesaa serves as vice-chairman of the Government Finance Committee, which also met recently to review some very important information.

That committee received a budget status update from the Office of Management and Budget at their recent meeting. The preliminary February report indicates that general fund revenues are running $27.5 million or 1.7 percent ahead of forecast through the first eight months of the biennium. Sales tax collections, a closely watched metric, are running very close to projections to date. Oil prices and production are slightly ahead of forecast.

Legislative Council gave a report entitled The Motor Fuel Tax: A System at Risk. Motor fuel tax has been the primary source of funding for transportation systems for nearly 100 years. However, with continuing increases in fuel efficiency and a coming shift to all electric vehicles, tax revenue will be decreasing while travel is increasing. Transportation funding is based almost entirely on the taxation of a commodity that our nation is aggressively trying to reduce the usage of. States will need new sources of revenue in the future. In order to continue maintaining the nation’s highway infrastructure, states are beginning to study alternative funding methods. Direct user fees based on vehicle miles traveled and electronic tolling of interstates are two ideas most often discussed.

Tax Commissioner Ryan Rauschenberger presented an estimated fiscal impact on North Dakota’s state income tax collection due to the enactment of the Federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. His department estimates that in the 2019-21 biennium, state income tax collections could be reduced by approximately $28 million, which is money that would then remain in the pockets of North Dakota citizens and businesses.

As administrative agencies write new rules to implement state legislation, the Administrative Rules Committee reviews them to make sure they comply with legislative intent. This past week the rules for medical marijuana were reviewed, as part of the committee’s work. The legislature wrote the law dealing with the issue last session.

It was the intent of the legislature that the Medical Marijuana Program would be well regulated to protect the citizens of our state and comply with federal directives dealing with the marijuana issue, at the time the legislation was passed and signed by the Governor.

The Department of Health has been writing the rules after holding public meetings across the state. The committee found that the rules fully followed the intent of the legislature and allowed them to move forward with an effective date of April 1. Jason Wahl of the Health Department indicated that he expected medical marijuana would be available to patients in our state by October or November of this year. That is within the time expected, as other states indicated it had taken eighteen to twenty-four months from when the legislation was passed until medical marijuana was available to citizens of those states.

In other work the committee rejected rules by the Board of Medicine, which opponents said would have restricted the use of telemedicine in the state. The committee sided with opponents, who felt the proposed rules would place undue constraints on the delivery of health care services throughout the state. Opponents of the rules pointed out that as technology has evolved in recent years, telemedicine has become an option for achieving improved access to healthcare in all areas of the state. They noted that telemedicine helps remove traditional barriers to health care delivery such as distance, mobility and time constraints.

The Education Standards and Practice Board presented changes to their rules to allow individuals to teach in both their major and minor areas of study. Originally when the No Child Left Behind became law in 2002, it did not allow individuals to teach in their minor areas of study. That was later changed and the legislature passed a law allowing the change to be made and the board presented new rules for that. A couple of other rules were also changed and the board told the committee they “would increase local control and flexibility and allow administrators to hire the most qualified individuals to teach in our schools.”

Rules proposed by the industrial commission that will provide greater transparency to mineral royalty statements were also allowed to go into effect. Bruce Hicks, assistant director for the North Dakota Oil and Gas Division, said regulators have expressed frustration about the deductions from their payments and felt the new rules would go a long ways to fixing that issue.

New rules for that would allow additional money to be made available for projects under the Drought Disaster Livestock Water Project Assistance Program were also reviewed. The committee had no objections to those rules.

The committee also reviewed rules and allowed them to take effect which will allow more professionals trained in speech language services to meet a growing need among our aging population. Many people deal with communication issues after a stroke or other major medical events. The expanded number of professionals will also help with the needs of children across the state.

Ten sets of new rules for various sections of the Department of Human Service were also completely reviewed by the committee. Some of those could have impacted long-term care and the department worked with representatives of those entities to minimize any negative effects.

Minutes from all legislative committee meetings are posted on the North Dakota Government website, http://www.nd.gov, if anyone is interested in reviewing what the legislature is doing during the interim.

District 23 residents who wish to contact us during the interim can e-mail us at: [email protected] and [email protected].