Agricultural News
Legislative Process Grinds On at the State Capitol- Michael Kelsey Offers an Ag View on Work Done to Date
Sun, 24 Apr 2022 19:31:00 CDT
One of several Oklahoma ag groups that are at the Oklahoma State Capitol every day is the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association. Michael Kelsey, Executive Vice President of the OCA, can be seen at the Capitol most days the Legislature is in session, proudly wearing his cowboy hat as he represents the cattlemen and cattlewoman across the state of Oklahoma.
Kelsey and Oklahoma Farm Report's Ron Hays caught up on Friday afternoon about the latest week of work for State Lawmakers- Kelsey telling Hays we are starting to see a few bills actually be approved in both the House and the Senate and sent on to the Governor for his possible signature. Kelsey says nopt many bills have made it to the finsih line as of yet- but that number will grow in the days ahead in Oklahoma City. One measure that is waiting on the Governor to be signed has to do with bonding requirements for Medical Marijuana grow facilities- SB1697 would require bonds to be posted by those filing for a grow house permit going forward to help provide assurance that the grower would decide to no longer grow the crop- pull stakes and leave before cleaning up the property. That bond would assure resources would be available to make sure such messes can be cleaned up.
One thing that is happening is that some bills of interest to the Ag Community are being consolidated with other measures. Kelsey says "we are at that point in the session where things start to get packaged...let me give you an example- the Signage Bill- when we first had that bill introduced- that signage bill we were working on was only for grow houses but now the House this past week captured not only signage bill for grow houses but also signage for dispensary- the language is different for each but now it's in one bill."
Kelsey adds that he is hopeful that at the end of the session- many of the priorities the Ag Groups have worked on will become law.
Hays and Kelsey also discussed the budget process that is really ramping up now- and even though we have more money this year compared to the last couple of sessions- there will be of different opinions about how to divide up all the dollars that the Legislature is authorized to spend.
They also discussed the just concluded filing session for local and state offices- Kelsey tells Hays that there are a lot of candidates that have federal the US Senate and Congressional races- as well as some state level races. But- he is very surprised that there are so many Oklahoma House and Senate races that saw the person filing to receive no challenger- and thus for those state races that had only one candidate that filed- that person automatically becomes the State Rep or State Senator.
At the Federal level- 16 candidates have filed to run for the right to replace Senator Jim Inhofe to for the last four years of this unexpired term. Nine candidates are challenging incumben James Lankford for a six year term while Governor Kevin Stitt has seven challengers in his bid to gain a second four year term.
In the State Legislature- among the State Senators who had no opposition were Senators Brent Howard, Roger Thompson, Chuck Hall, David Bullard and Daniel Weaver. In the Oklahoma House- Speaker Charles McCall has no opposition, as well as John Pfeiffer, Carl Newton, Mike Dobrinski, Kenton Patzkowsky, Jim Grego and Ryan Martinez.
Listen to the complete conversation between Michael Kelsey and Ron Hays by clicking on the Listen Bar below.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI
Top Agricultural News
More Headlines...