Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays, is visiting with the Oklahoma Farm Bureau Vice President of Public Policy, Steve Thompson, about highlights from Oklahoma’s legislative session.
Thompson described this year’s legislative session as “a bit of a grind,” as some difficult conversations took place.
“Along the way, we managed to get some pretty decent legislation passed, but honestly, I think the one point that I look back on is how nice it was that rural Oklahoma was such a critical component of so many discussions,” Thompson said. “Obviously, the education fight- that was the headlining issue of almost the entire session, and so much of that centered around what was going to be done for rural schools all around the state.”
Throughout the session, Thompson said it was evident that there is a large focus on rural Oklahoma at the state’s Capitol.
Beyond the education package, Thompson said he is feeling best about House Bill 2053 relating to water and water rights and applications for permits to take and use groundwater. This bill passed almost on the last day of session, Thompson said, and it was a big victory for the ag community.
“The other two things that pop up are part policy and part funding related,” Thompson said. “We talked a lot the last year about the Emergency Drought Commission and the work they have done with the limited funding, so it was really exciting to see a deposit made there to address the backlog of approved applications that they ran out of funding for in the last go-round as well as another payment made to that so they can maybe address some things moving forward in a targeted manner.”
Two more seats were added to the Emergency Drought Commission, Thompson said, as there have previously only been three individuals tackling the duties of the commission.
“The third thing has to do with the OSU College of Veterinary Medicine,” Thompson said. “That was a priority of ours all the way through, and we are really proud to support President Shrum and her strategic plan to revamp what they are doing there. They received 14 million dollars of recurring funding as well as a one-time capital projects funding of 79 million to do a complete renovation and rehab of their teaching hospital.”
