More budget work, some bill work ahead for Wyo legislature this week

by Phil Noble, Cowboy State Free Press Bureau Chief

CHEYENNE–Depending on how you count some of the budget amendments, the Wyoming Senate and House passed “mirror” budget bills that are about $50 million apart. Conference committees from both sides are at work, hammering out agreements to those differences, then will send their reports back to their respective chambers for approval or disapproval.

Since this is the last week of the legislature, their work will take on more of a sense of urgency since they need to get the budget to the governor in time for him to consider it and still leave time for the legislature to attempt veto overrides should he change line items in the budget, which he has done in the past.

The Senate last week performed what some political analysts saw as laying a trap for the governor over the issue of a new liquor warehouse for the state. First the Senate approved a proposed amendment to cut money for the new warehouse, after hearing arguments it isn’t necessary.

Then, two amendments later, the Senate passed a budget amendment which directed that funding for the new liquor warehouse must come from the legislature’s budget reserve account, something both the Senate and House have been reluctant to touch in this session.

That left some political analysts scratching their heads until they figured out that if the House agrees with the Senate, the governor will be faced with taking the money for the new liquor warehouse from budget reserves, something he has repeatedly said the legislature should not do, and therefore would probably veto the footnote, thus erasing the new warehouse.

Then, the reasoning seems to go, the governor is blamed for not building a new liquor warehouse instead of the legislature.

In other political maneuvering last week, House Bill 78, natural gas valuation, was the focus of several industry and county government lobbyists and the Senate Revenue Committee. The bill was aimed at changing the Wyoming Supreme Court’s decision regarding the point of valuation for gas produced and processed at ExxonMobil’s Shute Creek Plant near LaBarge. It passed the House with several amendments. But, in the Senate Revenue Committee, it was debated but ultimately died on a 3-2 vote after testimony from ExxonMobil and some oil and gas lobbyists.

A collection of bills dealing with the wind industry are poised to pass this session. Wyoming gained national attention with its generation tax on wind energy. House Bill 101 imposes a $1.00 per megawatt hour excise tax on all wind generation, but doesn’t start till 2012, with the revenue being split 60% to the counties, 40% to the state. The tax also does not go into effect until the turbine has been in operation for three years. House Bill 72, establishing ground rules for county regulation and minimum setback standards, has the full support of the wind industry. The same can be said of Senate File 66, which amends the Industrial Siting Act to deal with wind projects.

Both HB 72 and SF 66 are the products of the work of the Wind Energy Task Force, and they reflect a great deal of cooperative work between the industry, state and county governments. House Bill 79, which imposes a moratorium until July 2011 on the use of eminent domain for collector systems is on the Senate floor. House Bill 111 is a product of the Western States Energy and Environment Symposium, and will also likely pass. It encourages the Western States to work on solving regional transmission issues.