Feb. – 2011
Nebraska’s Unicameral introduced 698 bills for debate during the 2011 legislative session. The following is a listing of some of the more “interesting” bills.
LB46 – Provides for a definition of a barber pole….”a cylinder or pole with alternating stripes of red, white, and blue or any combination of them that run diagonally along the length of the cylinder or pole.”
LB52 – Change motorcycle helmet provisions and require eye protection.
LB101 – Eliminate Daylight Savings Time.
LB 197 – Ensures that mothers are able to breastfeed wherever they are authorized to be.
LB 226 – Create the offense of assault with a bodily fluid against a public safety officer.
LB 229 – Transfer funds from the Nebraska Environmental Trust Fund to the Water Resources Cash Fund. This bill would allow funds to be used for studies and grants to facilitate compliance with the Nebraska Groundwater Management and Protection Act.
LB 294 – Would prohibit a liquor licensee from selling alcohol to an individual prior to 6 a.m. on the person’s twenty-first birthday. (In other words, one needs to be 21 years and 6 hours before he/she could legally purchase alcohol.)
LB 436 – Increase Tobacco Use Tax from 64 cents to $1.99 per package.
LB 469 – Prohibit retail sale of novelty lighters and provide a penalty. This bill would include lighters with the likeness of cartoon characters, food and beverages, toys, guns, animals, vehicles, and musical instruments and those that play music or have more than one function.
LB 504 – Change motor fuel tax rates from 7.5 cents to 11.3 cents through October 1, 2012 and 15.1 cents per gallon there after.
LB516 – Authorize carrying of concealed handguns in educational institutions by security personnel, administrators or teaching staff.
Many of these bills seem rather frivolous or just an unnecessary nuisance for our society. Others could have an enormous impact. If you are a smoker LB436 will be of interest. If you are a parent LB516 should be a great concern.
LB101 eliminates the use of Daylight Savings Time throughout the entire State. How would this affect us as a golf business? The elimination of an hour of daylight in the evening for recreation could be detrimental for our industry. The working class might have a difficult time completing 9-holes of golf and would twilight golf leagues be able to finish a 9-hole round before dark? We need to be aware of where this bill is headed and be positioned with other allied groups to be in opposition if necessary.
There are over 25 bills introduced that concern water. Topics from the inclusion of fluoride, nitrates, and uranium in our water supplies to numerous definitions and terms used in defining the issues of water law should illustrate the relevancy of this subject. Several bills pertain to the NRDs. LB229 is especially interesting. It allows the transfer of funds from the Nebraska Environmental Trust Fund (Lottery Proceeds) to help pay for water management in the state. The bill, introduced by Sen. Deb Fischer of Valentine, was drafted to help fund a $320 million Platte River Cooperative agreement signed in 2006 by the governors of Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming. It was designed to benefit endangered and threatened species. Initially this bill looks like it would fulfill the objectives of the Environmental Trust Fund. The funding from this bill ($10 million per year for 7 years) will be used to manage water resources through means as diverse as creating new levees to paying farmers not to irrigate. However the real issue is depleted streamflows that have directly reduced the habitat for these species to flourish and survive. Many attribute the reduced streamflows to over-allocated irrigation in the Platte Valley.
The legislature turned a deaf ear to similar proposed legislation when the Republican River Basin issues were debated in 2007 to help the area become compliant with the 1943 Republican River Compact, in which the Republican River streamflows would be distributed with 49% allocated to Nebraska, 40% to Kansas, and 11% to Colorado. It has been difficult for Nebraska to achieve compliancy in drought and water-short years.
Similarly the Platte River Cooperative Agreement was signed by the State in 2006 by the Governors of Nebraska, Wyoming, and Colorado. Of the cost of the plan, the federal government paid $157 million in cash. Colorado paid $24 million cash, Wyoming $6 million cash, and the balance is Nebraska’s contribution to come from land and water credits. One goal of the agreement is to offset Platte River water depletions that occurred after 1997, primarily through irrigation. The money that would be transferred from the Environmental Trust Fund would largely be used to buy landowner’s water rights and to pay farmers not to irrigate……this is a similar debate which occurred in 2007 over the Republican River Compact.
The Governor, in 2007, was quoted at a water management meeting, that the Republican River basin’s trouble “is a local problem that requires local solutions.” Contrarily, Sen. Chris Langemeir of Schuyler, a co-sponsor of LB229, said the time is right for this legislation (LB229) in light of the state’s budget shortfall. “There are no general fund dollars, and if we do nothing, it becomes the burden of the people in the Platte River Basin to deal with water management issues there.” (Langemier’s district includes the Lower Platte North NRD.) So……is this a local or state concern?
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I find it remarkable (if this bill is passed) that the state is willing to help fund this inter-state agreement on the Platte River but was not been willing to support the 1943 Republican River Compact. Since 2007 the local Republican River Basin NRDs have tackled their own water issues with little or no financial help from the state. Ironically the ETF has contributed some funding for various projects in the Republican Basin to encourage streamflows. But, all the successful grants had to follow specific project bidding guidelines set forth by the ETF. LB229 would bypass the bidding and evaluation processes of the ETF. The Republican River Basin NRDs have developed and created their own water management polices to curtail and conserve water usage. Allocations and water management plans have been implemented and basin irrigators are required to pay an “occupational use tax” based on irrigated acres. It is these funds that are being generated locally that are being used to reimburse farmers to retire irrigated acres. I would certainly hope that funding from LB229, if successful, would be available to all basins throughout the state.
It is important that we as individuals or as an industry understand the legal ramifications of any proposed legislation. All of these bills could potentially affect us socially, legally, environmentally, and financially. They could have an enormous effect on us….and maybe not in a positive way.
Bill Bieck
