By Dick Ulmer – HB#188 passed its 1st House committee and will be heard by the 2nd House committee this coming Monday, March 2, 2015 (you can watch for any change in schedule by right clicking here) . As we discovered at the last hearing, if you don’t get there early, you may not get in the room (they only allow the number into the hearing for whom there are seats—otherwise you get to stand in the hall outside until someone leaves). There are two other bills on the docket before HB188 which will likely have supporters (who will leave after testimony—so don’t give up if you are in the hall). We also still expect the opposition to be there to try to dissuade the committee against our bill.
Background on this House committee and a link to key talking points can be found on the ES-CA Forum by right clicking here.
LPT members met on February 2nd with the most vocal opposition. This is a well organized group that supply materials and do road contract work for the state DOT (it was their members that tried to pack the house at the first hearing). We expect that their statements will be consistent with what they told us at the meeting:
1) They are trying to characterize this as all contractors being penalized because of one bad actor. We made it clear, that we are concerned about the next bad act or actor, and are only using our most recent experience as an example.
2) While we pointed out that this was amended to limit to Class A counties—their response was that the state will increase the number of counties that covers and/or next session strike that limitation (they clearly believe that all counties would like this bill to pass)
3) Their most repeated concern was that counties would take advantage of this increased fine to enact local ordinances that would be onerous (e.g. limit mining to 6 hours a day, or truck hauls to 10 a day) in order to drive them out of business (which they contend our proposed fine could do to a small operator which they contend most of the DOT suppliers are).
4) We asked if it would change their position if we added the “20 acres of disturbed land” to further limit applicability and their response is that many of the DOT mines are larger than that, but relatively short lived before being reclaimed. We asked if a larger number (e.g. 50 acres—which would exclude 85% of the mines in the entire state) would do it—and they couldn’t arrive at a number and commit to drop opposition.
5) We pointed out that without local regulations, other than for air quality, we would have none. The state has no noise enforcement, no reclamation enforcement, no evaluation process for impact on surrounding properties, etc—since gravel mining is not mining and gravel is not a mineral according to the state (sounds wrong to me as well). We can either focus on fixing the issue of control from the Roundhouse or local control—or no control (and I don’t think these groups want to be advocating the latter).
Finally, we think their concerns (which seems to be their bottom line position) about local ordinances being enacted using the “teeth” of HB188 to drive them out of business is just wrong. No county wants their roads in a state of disrepair because the cost of gravel went up too much. Homebuyers don’t want the cost of building to skyrocket due to lack of concrete. Local is the right place to make these tradeoffs and decision—not something to be feared.
The hearing on Monday March 2nd could be a difficult vote for us based on the discussions that several of us had last week with committee members—so we need your support. And if you can’t be there, you still have time to email the representatives.