On this West Virginia Morning, We bring you the latest developments from the House as well as an update on the rollback of regulations for above-ground storage tanks that were a result of the chemical spill last year.
Tag: 2015 Legislative Session
Courtesy Patrol Debated in the House
The Courtesy Patrol is a free roadside assistance service offered to those traveling through West Virginia. The program is within the Division of Tourism, as the patrol often helps visitors as they travel. It has a budget of four million dollars. In the House Wednesday, Delegates considered a senate passed bill that transfers the patrol to the Division of Highways, but allows Tourism to keep the money for state marketing campaigns. But the debate took a turn, as Republicans debated whether the courtesy patrol should even exist.
Senate Bill 581 relates to the transferring of the Courtesy Patrol from the Division of Tourism to the Division of Highways, eliminating requirement that moneys be transferred from the Tourism Promotion Fund to the Courtesy Patrol Fund. This would also specify how funds may be spent.
Delegate Michel Moffatt, a Republican from Putnam County, proposed an amendment to Senate Bill 581 that would do away with the Courtesy Patrol completely and have that four million dollars go toward West Virginia road maintenance.
While all Democratic Delegates were opposed to the amendment, the majority of Republicans were also.
Delegate Matthew Rohrbach of Cabell County visited the Courtesy Patrol’s website after Delegate Moffatt offered his amendment. He found that between November 1998 to the end of February 2015, the Courtesy Patrol has aided a lot of people.
“I’m gonna give you some statistics of the services that these folks have provided to the citizens of this state and to our visitors,” Rohrbach said, “They’ve assisted 292,000 vehicles, removed 18,000 pieces of debris, 8,500 deer carcasses, surprisingly 181 bears have been removed by the Courtesy Patrol as well as 3,900 other animal carcasses. They perform 14,000 procedural checks, and in total they’ve assisted 78,000 vehicles.”
Republican Bob Ashley of Roane County also opposed the amendment because he says it’s necessary for those who can’t afford assistance.
“I was here when we created the program in 1998. I remember when Governor Underwood put this program in to use the people from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program, and that’s what we use,” noted Ashley, “We take the people who are on welfare who receives this assistance, and they, they get their training with West Virginia, and they do the service, and as the gentlemen from several places, several counties has talked, these people are then picked up by private, they’re trained, and they’re picked up by the companies of West Virginia.”
Republican Delegate Cindy Frich of Monogalia County, however, supported Moffat’s amendment to eliminate the courtesy patrol.
“I suspect that if the Delegate’s amendment were to succeed that perhaps there would be four million dollars more for perhaps road maintenance or some other sort of road repair, and then perhaps there’d be less people needing assistance on the roads and perhaps there’d be jobs created filling potholes,” Frich said.
Delegate Michael Ihle, a Republican from Jackson County, also supported the amendment, because he says the 4 million dollars might be better used if put toward sending Courtesy Patrol employees back in school.
“If we wanted too, we could take that four million dollars, split it up amongst the eighty people and give’em all each a fifty-thousand-dollar scholarship to go back to school,” Ihle explained, “To me, there are benefits from this program, but we have to weigh them versus the costs, and when you talk about fifty-thousand-dollars a person, I don’t know that we’re getting the return on our spending slash investment depending on which term you want to use. The math just doesn’t add up for me.”
By the end of the debate, Moffatt’s amendment was rejected 12 to 87. Senate Bill 581 will be on third reading Thursday.
Legislature Requests Study on Right-to-Work
State Republican legislative leaders are asking for additional study into the economic impact of a potential right-to-work law in West Virginia.
A news release Wednesday says Senate President Bill Cole and House Speaker Tim Armstead requested the research on March 6. It will be completed by the West Virginia University Bureau of Business and Economic Research later this year.
This year’s right-to-work proposal would have made it a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $5,000 fine, to require workers to pay dues to a union. It wouldn’t have applied to federal workers.
Employees who don’t pay dues still would have benefitted from the union representation.
GOP leaders say the proposal is dead this year.
Twenty-five states have similar laws. GOP Gov. Scott Walker just signed one in Wisconsin this week.
Public Hearing Held on Charter Schools
On this West Virginia Morning, we’ll bring you the latest developments in the Senate and the House, including a public hearing that was held yesterday on Charter Schools
Raw Milk is Debated on the House Floor
Senate Bill 30 permits a shared animal ownership agreement to consume raw milk. Currently in the state, it is illegal to purchase or sell raw milk. And just like when it was debated in the Senate, some members of the House also questioned the health effects of drinking raw milk, while others maintained it allows for personal freedom.
Senate Bill 30 would allow two parties to have a written agreement saying they would share ownership of a milk producing animal and that milk would be used for consumption. The bill would also require the Department of Agriculture to be aware of the agreement, and the seller would have to meet state standards from a licensed veterinarian. If an illness would occur after consuming raw milk, those persons in the agreement would have to report the illness to their local health department.
Debate erupted on the House floor as health risks and freedoms were discussed.
Delegate Nancy Guthrie of Kanawha County opposed the bill because she worried it would reintroduce diseases like polio and others.
“When I look at this bill,” Guthrie said, “and I realize that we could’ve taken one more preventative measure by just saying to the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services, while we recognize that agriculture is in a growing industry in our state, we need to be very careful about maybe reintroducing E.coli, maybe reintroducing polio, maybe reintroducing some of the diseases that have been associated with non-pasteurized milk over the years. Let them have joint custody on writing the rules.”
Delegate Jim Morgan of Cabell County says he used to own a dairy farm and questioned the cleanliness of those parties selling raw milk.
“That was a difficult job keeping that sterilized, clean, and the Kanwaha, Charleston Health Department examined our farm every two weeks. I just don’t understand why somebody who maybe thinks that a nice cow giving milk is going to be better than buying it pasteurized off the shelf,” said Morgan, “If you have seen farming conditions other than the ones under the, subject to health department rules, and I understand they’re some rules in this. I feel that it’s a step backwards in public health, and that for those conditions to be met is going to be very difficult, and when you go to the farm to visit your cows, be sure to look at their utter and be sure it’s clean.”
Delegate Lynne Arvon of Raleigh County supported the bill and argued it would not require retailers to sell raw milk, only two consenting parties with an animal that produced milk.
“I think people need to remember, this bill is not about selling raw milk. This is about people owning their own cows, their own goats and using the milk from those cows and goats,” Arvon noted, “I think they have the right to use those animals as they choose. We talk about freedom; that is freedom. We’re not selling it to anyone else, although personally I think they should be able to do that. If people want to buy raw milk, they should be able to buy raw milk. And I’ll use the example I spoke about in Health committee. Alcohol. How many deaths can we relate to alcohol? I can’t even count. How about to raw milk? I know one in twenty-five years. So are we gonna ban alcohol? I think not.”
Delegate Kelli Sobonya of Cabell County also supported the bill and says there are more deaths related to foodborne illnesses than from raw milk.
“There are ten million people in America that consume raw milk. Ten million people,” Sobonya said, “We haven’t heard a big problem that people are out there dying, but yet there are millions and millions of foodborne illnesses in America, due to cantaloupe, three-hundred people were hospitalized for candied apples. We haven’t outlawed candied apples for the consumption of children. Seven people died in 2015 from candied apples, and three-hundred were sickened.”
Delegate Matthew Rohrbach of Cabell County says he will support the bill, but only because he thinks it’s an attempt to regulate something that has the potential to be harmful.
“I think we have to be realistic that raw milk is being sold, and we’re not regulating it,” Rohrbach noted, “I think this bill is an attempt to regulate a cottage industry that is going on, and if it does get some oversight over the herds, begrudgingly I can support this bill, but I’m gonna rise to tell the members that we’re gonna have some tough debates this week about some issues of public health, and the people of this state depend on a hundred people sitting here to make decisions for their health and well-being, and I urge you not to go backward.”
Senate Bill 30 passed 81 to 19.
House Judiciary Passes Concealed Carry & Political Spending Reform
Over the weekend the House Judiciary Committee met to discuss a handful of bills, but most notably the bill to amend the concealed carry law and a bill that reforms political spending in the state.
Senate Bill 541 relates generally to the regulation and control of elections. Among the changes made in the House was the removal of all reporting requirements by third party organizations.
“Well the changes basically were, were at the request of some folks over at the Senate,” said House Judiciary Chair, Delegate John Shott of Mercer County, “where my understanding was they had some second thoughts among the people that negotiated that bill, and this particular instance, we had information that some of the stakeholders thought, had second thoughts about that provision of the bill, and so when we came out with our strike and insert amendment, we removed that from the bill. All we’ve attempted to do with this bill was monitor, or mirror the federal laws and make it less complicated, because rather than having two standards, we’re trying to coordinate the two.”
Democratic Delegate Stephen Skinner of Jefferson County was not happy with the changes and wanted the bill to stay the way it was in the Senate version.
“It stripped out all the requirements for public disclosure of donors of dark money organizations. That’s one of the very good things that the Senate did, and it was done on a bi-partisan basis,” noted Skinner, “This bill was presented to us in committee without any notice and it was rammed through. We asked for an additional day to take a look at the bill and understand what was in it, and we were voted down on party lines.”
Senator Mike Romano, a Democrat from Harrison County, worked closely with Republican leadership in the Senate to craft the strict reporting requirements. He was also upset by the changes made to the bill in the House and says he will vote against them.
“I’m very disappointed,” Romano said, “The main compromise in that bill was to get disclosures of contributors to third party independent campaigns. Those are the very nasty commercials that we see every election season, and we thought that by getting those disclosures it would, you know, dampen down some of that negative rhetoric that seems to be polluting our elections. I don’t know why the House did that, but personally the bill was a compromise. The Democratic caucus did not want any increases in spending limits, and because we got those disclosures in it, we were willing to agree to the increase to the federal limits.”
Senate Majority Leader, Mitch Carmichael of Jackson County, says he doesn’t agree with the House’s changes either.
“It’s my understanding that the House has moved to protect the anonymous speech with regard to some of those campaign contributions to the third party entities,” Carmichael explained, “There’s certainly a constitutional argument that can be made that disclosure is not required with those third party entities, but if you’re asking me for my personal perspective and from the sentiment within the Senate Chamber, it is my absolute conviction that more disclosure is better.”
Carmichael says he suspects if those amendments remain in the House’s version, the bill will likely enter a conference committee between both chambers to discuss the final outcome.
After a press conference Monday, Governor Tomblin said he too supported the stricter reporting requirements on outside spending.
“I think that those donors should be identified,” Tomblin said, “You know, if I spend money on my campaigns, I have to say where I got the money, what it was used for, and who gave me that money, so, you know, I think that it should be the same way for those people. If they want to contribute that kind of money, they step forward and be identified.”
Another bill that came up over the weekend in the House Judiciary Committee was Senate Bill 347, removing the licensure requirement to carry a concealed handgun. The controversy over the bill amplified last week in a public hearing held in the House Chamber. Ultimately, the House made some amendments to the bill in committee, most notably in the age limit. In the House’s version, the age limit was increased from 18 to 21. This amendment was originally attempted by Senator Romano in the Senate, but failed.
Both Senator Romano and Carmichael say they are fine with the increase in the age limit and think it makes sense to make that change. However, Delegate Skinner says he still has some concerns with the bill in its entirety.
“Most West Virginians want a moderate approach to conceal and carry,” Skinner said, “and repealing the need within the state to have a conceal carry training and license; that’s not moderate. And I think most West Virginians agree that we need to require some kind of training and a license for people to be able to carry a concealed weapon.”
Both bills will soon see the House floor for their consideration.