February 28, 2022 |
The Wyoming Legislature reached the half-way mark of the budget session on Friday. Both the House and the Senate slogged their way to the milestone by passing their respective versions of the mirror legislation of the two-year, $2.7 billion budget.
In the lower chamber, weary lawmakers worked into the night, plowing through third reading of more than 40 amendments to House Bill 1.
Now it’s out of the frying pan and into the fire. The competing versions of the budget bills will be introduced into the other chamber today.
Also in the Senate, the redistricting bill – House Bill 100 – will be debated for the first time on the floor of the upper chamber. Last Monday morning, HB 100 was introduced in the Senate, Senator Larry Hicks of Baggs offered a sneak peek at the opposition the 62/31 plan will face.
Debate on HB 100 is on the docket for the Senate’s morning session today, which begins at 10 a.m.
Also in the House on Friday, HB 105, which proposes to cut the severance tax on coal production by a half-percent per ton passed the committee of the whole. Debate was lively. Currently, Article 15 of the Wyoming Constitution only imposes a 1.5 percent ton severance tax. The legislature has levied another 5.5 percent on top of that. HB 105 would trim the statutory amount to five percent.
Representative Tim Hallinan, the sponsor of the bill, said the coal industry is the goose that laid the golden egg for Wyoming. Now the goose’s head is on the chopping block. The slim margins coal companies already face would be sliced even thinner by the burdensome federal taxes that the Biden administration failed to pass last year.
The Legislature’s Appropriations Committee opposes the bill. It voted 7-0 against the tax reduction. Committee Chair Bob Nicholas of Laramie County said the coal industry is doing just fine.
Nicholas, keeping his eye on revenues, said the bill does not propose an offset to the $18 million in income the state would incur if the HB 105 passes.
Representative Mike Grear of the Big Horn Basin pushed back against the claim that coal companies are racking up big profits because of high commodity prices. Nobody is paying $21 a ton for coal, Grear said.
The LSO’s fiscal note projects, based on the January CREG report, that over a three-year period the general fund would see nearly $8 million in revenue decreases. During that same time period, 2023 to 2025, the budget reserve account would lose an estimated $18 million in revenue. On average, the loss is about $9 million a year between both accounts.
Representative John Bear of Campbell County said some of $450 million in federal COVID relief funding from the American Rescue Act Plan Act be used to backfill the loss.
Democrat Mike Yin tried to short-circuit the debate and kill the bill on a procedural motion. Yin objected to HB 105 even being considered since appropriations had voted “due not pass.” Yin asked for the rules committee to decide. Rather than finding the bill was in violation, the committee ruled that the objection from the Jackson Hole Democrat was out of order.
Representative Sandy Newsome of Cody was in the Speaker’s Chair and in control of the gavel for the call. House Speaker Eric Barlow was on the floor to speak in favor of the bill. Barlow said HB 105 did not go far enough.
HB 105 passed first reading on a voice vote. Second reading is scheduled for this morning.
