Agricultural News
Latest Deadline Week Leaves Many Important Proposals Left as Roadkill as We Charge for the Finish Line
Sat, 30 Apr 2022 20:05:21 CDT
At the conclusion of the latest Deadline week at the Oklahoma State Capitol, Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster for the Oklahoma Farm Report, Ron Hays, talked in depth with the Vice President of Public Policy for Oklahoma Farm Bureau, Steve Thompson. Hays and Thompson discuss the latest week of legislative work at the Oklahoma State Capitol. It was an important week, as another crucial deadline has come and gone- leaving many pieces of legislation in serious danger of not having a chance to become law this session.
They discuss medical marijuana and measures that would offer ovesight of grow houses- tax issues- especially those involving county assessors and others that Farm Bureau and other ag groups have been tracking.
They also talked about how close the budget deal for this year may or may not be. Things have gone quiet when it comes to budget negotiations, according to Thompson, and he says that will often mean an announcement may be coming that the sides hopelessly too far apart to ever come up with a deal- then in the matter of another day or two- the word will come that a deal has been struck and lawmakers will be ready to go home to allow many of them to campaign.
Also on the budget- it appears there will be enough money here in 2022 that several "investments" can be made on programs that various lawmakers and the public carry a torch for. The rainy day fund will also certainly
be added to in 2022- and we asked Thompson about the Oklahoma Emergency Drought Fund. It was established in 2012 and can be used for all things drought related-fire, livestock feed assistance, municipal water systems, pond clean out, well drilling, etc. it also creates a drought advisory board of dept of ag, water resources board, and conservation commission when activated to both determine how funds are spent and to advise the governor on additional actions. Thompson says most of the ag groups are encouraging lawmakers to add money to this Emergency Drought Fund- he says we don't know the outcome on that yet- but he remains hopeful of a positive outcome here.
Finally- we asked Thompson if he and others in the ag community are disappointed that so many of the proposals that would have addressed the huge Grow House problem for Medical Marijuana are technically dead for this session. He tells Hays the status of these measures leaves him "a little disappointed but certainly I have not given up hope yet- as we think there are a few things on the proper path and we are not completely shut out yet on a few others and certainly has not gone as smoothly in the last few weeks as we would have liked." And he adds "we have to our nose to the grindstone and keep working together - we spent a lot of time this last week- keep working together- I know that we spent a long time this past week as an ag family going over several of these that went out that there were questions on." He adds that he is more pessimistic at this point than just a few weeks ago- but he thinks we can still do something great on the Medical Marijuana Grow House issue but the road is a little rougher that it was just a month ago.
Click on the LISTEN BAR below to hear the full conversation between Hays and Steve Thompson.
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