This week in the capitol, Dad visited me and spent the day on the House floor, in committee hearings, etc. Great to have him here. Just as a chance happening, we had our pictures taken with Governor Schweitzer!

Thursday was also picture day for the House of Representatives. Edie McClafferty’s husband caught this picture of me while we were waiting for the next shot.

And here’s a switch: Usually, the blood-letting at the capitol is figurative; on Thursday, it was literal, with a Red Cross blood drive in the capitol rotunda.

Good grief, people. March and early April have been a terrible time for disasters in our state.

In the news this morning is an account of a plane crash near the Hungry Horse Reservoir. The plane was found at around 2:00 a.m. on Friday west of the reservoir; the craft is registered to Hugh A. Rogers of Whitefish. Officials say that at this time, that only the pilot was known to have been on board the plane.

This crash was the third fatal airplane crash in Montana in just over two weeks. Sparky Imeson of Helena was killed when his Cessna 180 crashed near Canyon Ferry Lake on March 17th and 14 people were killed on March 22nd, when their Pilatus PC-12 crashed in a cemetery near the Bert Mooney Airport in Butte.

In early March, we had our share of disaster. On March 5, a natural gas explosion and fire in downtown Bozeman killed one woman and destroyed numerous downtown Bozeman businesses.

The very next day, a gas explosion and fire in Whitehall, about forty miles from Bozeman, destroyed three businesses housed in historic downtown buildings.

On March 23, fire engulfed businesses in a city block of Miles City.

Everyone, be safe. Keep your heads down. Help your fellow man.

I’ve reported on the pranks and fun in the Montana Legislature before, and here’s the latest installment.

Mike Jopek, a legislator from Whitefish and a farmer, carried a bill in the House of Representatives this week proposing to revise the milk control laws and transfer certain functions from the Department of Livestock to the Board of Milk Control. The bill was contentious, pitting smaller local producers against larger corporations that operate in nearby states and ship milk to Montana stores. Country Classic, a producer in Gallatin County, emailed a bunch of us to relate how the bill would hurt their good operation, and many legislators opposed the bill after hearing from Country Classic and other Montana milk producers.

When Jopek stood on the floor to present the bill, he was serenaded by gentle mooing. Today, his desk was adorned with Country Classic milk cartons, out of love.

And if there’s Lesson One that anyone learns in the legislature, it’s this: don’t be absent. If you’re absent, your compatriots punish you. In Shannon Augare’s case, his desk was the receiving site of all of the recycling from a day’s floor session, hundreds of bills piled on his chair and desk and taped into place. Again, just out of love for our fellow representative.

Lastly, it’s the little things in life that one must appreciate. Hopefully, you’ve seen in previous posts how enamored I am of goldfish crackers–good and so good for me. But this week, I discovered Bunny Grahams, possibly the cutest food ever. Just look at the ears!

Michelle Obama is on her first overseas trip as First Lady, and all the media asks is “What will Michelle wear?” Now, I’m as interested and enchanted with fashion as anyone, (see my earlier blog entries, rife with pictures of shoes), but really, everyone, this woman graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School. She has worked as part of the staff of Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley, and for the University of Chicago Medical Center. This is a very intelligent, talented, driven woman, who also happens to have a keen fashion sense.

During Obama’s presidential campaign, Michelle Obama’s former law professor was interviewed and said that he had expected Michelle to hold elected office before Barack Obama did.

I’d much prefer the questions to be, “What does Michelle think about the G20 convention and capitalism around the globe?” and THEN, the follow-up to be, nice coat. Because, wow, it is. And LOVE the yellow cocktail ensemble.

The conversation about fashion leads me to a thought for girls when they’re wondering what to be when they grow up. Whether it’s a doctor, lawyer, astronaut, teacher, president, the most important thing?…

Be smart.

Intellectually and fashionably.

Water rights are among the most valued property rights anywhere. Indeed, what is land without water? Montana has long honored a prior appropriations doctrine, which means that the first person to hold a water right in time has priority for water. First in time, first in right. It’s the basis for protecting prior appropriators from subsequent users that may adversely affect existing water rights.
Today in floor debate in the Montana House of Representatives, a bill was presented that proposes a last-in-time, first-in-right model for the energy industry that produces coal bed methane (CBM), natural gas. There are a number of critically bad proposals in this bill: it gives the Board of Oil and Gas, which grants drilling permits, not water rights, jurisdiction over water; in one part it restricts any release to surface water but in another, it grants release to surface water; and it grants temporary permits through which entire subsurface aquifers may be dewatered by CBM operators. The bill was heard by the House Agriculture committee last week, but usually, energy- or water rights-related bills are heard by our Energy or Natural Resources committees. This one went to Ag.
CBM works by pumping up water from underground aquifers, which decreases the pressure underground in strata where the natural gas is held. Once the water is pumped off, the gas can be pumped out, but the water is not replaced, and any other wells drilled into that aquifer, for irrigation or stock water or domestic water, are then without the water. There have been efforts to require industry to recharge (refill) the aquifers by holding the water they pump up and requiring that they then pump it back in, but those efforts have failed. Industry says it’s too expensive and troublesome. I think having other water users’ water pumped off is troublesome. Additionally, CBM water is almost always highly salinated and highly mineralized, making it bad for irrigating, and bad for surface waters. Montana is in legal action against the State of Wyoming because of that state’s discharge into the Powder and Tongue Rivers, which run north into Montana; because of Wyoming’s CBM surface water discharges, the saline and mineral levels in those rivers are off the charts, furthering compromising our water users’ uses.

Judge Honzel issued an opinion that restricts the use of CBM water per our state laws. That was the right call, both for the beneficial use versus the wasting of water, prohibited in Montana, and to protect our senior water rights holders. This bill proposes to absolutely twist our water rights statutes and the prior appropriations doctrine, all for one use, for one industry, for a short-term gain.

The bill is also a sham: its number is HB575, but it’s not that bill. The House Agriculture committee heard and considered HB575 and that bill did not pass committee. Then an amendment came forth that replaced all language and all sections of HB575 with language from HB505, from a Senate sponsor, and for the first time ever, I’ve seen this language:

(Refer to Introduced Bill)
Strike everything after the enacting clause and insert:

This is abhorrent.

I voted against the bill, but it passed with a 59-41 vote. An amendment proposed by Rep. David Roundstone failed, which would have required the Board of Oil and Gas to certify that any withdrawal of water does not adversely affect senior water rights holders. The amendment failed.

Each day, the Speaker of the House calls the chamber to order and rolls through a number of Orders of Business, like messages from the Senate, First Reading of Bills, etc. Then he names a Chair of the Day from the 100 Representatives. Yesterday, I was Chair of the Day!

And some glimpses of life in the chamber of the House of Representatives from this past week:

Cinnamon bears sent to me by my seatmates while I was chairing the committee; delivered by a page to me at the rostrum. Nice! My people love me and send me cinnamon bears!

The first car in the lot on Saturday morning, 6:30 a.m. before an 8 o’clock Call to Order in the House of Representatives. I give this work my all.

Oh, the teal suede shoes with copper leather toe band and silver buckles. Loveliness.

There has been a lot going on lately, bad stuff: a plane crash in Butte on Sunday that killed three families and the pilot of the plane, a terrible fire in Miles City yesterday that involved eight businesses and an entire city block, the earlier gas explosion and fire in Bozeman and the subsequent investigation, the fire in Whitehall the day after the Bozeman thing, good grief. What is happening?!?

At times like this, amidst the furor of a legislative session, a representative finds sustenance wherever she can. On this day, it’s a handful of goldfish crackers. It’s a nice nod to the snack cracker that got me through college: I remember all-nighters in the Architecture studio at Montana State University, when goldfish crackers and Diet Coke figured prominently in my diet. Funny that they do now, too.

I presented a bill in a Senate committee today and I’ll do the same with another this afternoon. House Bill 572, to establish state matching grants for SBIR/STTR grantees, was heard in Senate Business, Labor, and Economic Affairs just before noon. House Bill 480, for non-resident youth upland game bird licenses, will be considered by the Senate Fish, Wildlife, and Parks committee this afternoon. Cross your fingers for passage of both bills.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

The Montana Capitol celebrates with a foggy, moody morning that shrouds the Meagher statue even as it is bunted in the colors of Eire. For the day, we replace the Montana state flag with the Irish flag, too.

This morning, pipers and drums in the rotunda; the Springthistle Pipe Band played for us, and Irish dancers followed.

Not to be outdone, I and my seatmates at our desks on the floor of the House in our Irish green…

Since the explosion and fire in Bozeman a week and a half ago, I’ve been working on getting unemployment benefits expedited for workers of the businesses ruined in the disaster. Employees cannot present the usual documents required to file for benefits; those records were lost. W-2s, hourly wage statements, length of employment, etc. were on computers or bookkeepers’ ledgers, so those requirements will be waived. For employees who weren’t full-time and therefore not eligible for unemployment benefits, we’re trying to find ways to pay some benefit. First Security Bank in Bozeman opened an account days after the blast and fire for some relief for those workers, and I’ve been working on some kind of unemployment benefits for them.

I’ve been in contact with the Montana Historical Society in Helena with questions on salvaging building materials for use in reconstruction. There’s concern that, even if materials appear intact, they may not be structurally sound. For instance, there was a lot of brickwork in the buildings in the blast, and those bricks were blown into the street, brick walls toppled onto the site, and everything coated in dust that we’re not sure doesn’t have some environmental contaminant in it. If you drop a brick, then pick it up, it might look okay, but hairline fractures inside may not be detected. I love our historic downtown Bozeman and I know all our citizens, business owners, and visitors do, too. We’ll work extra hard to keep the character the same or better, but using the actual materials that were in the blast may not be possible. Everything will help in getting the site back in shape: historic photos, recent photos, and indeed, some of the building materials may be usable. There are many people dedicated to re-establishing the site in our lovely downtown.

I’ve been trying to help to get Small Business Administration loans established for downtown businesses affected directly or indirectly by the event. For those businesses that need low-interest, relaxed term loans for demolition, site clearing, and rebuilding their businesses, these loans could help. For businesses with losses from fewer patrons, they can apply, too, showing that sales and traffic is down compared with the same period the year prior. Usually, SBA loans need a moderate number of businesses to start, and that pool may be relaxed to as few as three or five businesses in this case, which is great news! More than those initial three could participate, of course, but the relaxed requirement can help Bozeman businesses immediately. The discussions about the SBA loans began the day after the event, and should be established soon.

Just two days after the blast, I wondered about the tax increment financing (TIF) district downtown and the impact of the property values on the TIF district. I spoke with Chris Naumann, the executive director of the Downtown Business Association, and Anna Rosenberry, Finance Officer for the City of Bozeman, who drafted suggested language for a change in our laws not to severely impact the city through lowered valuation in the TIF. I spoke with the chief legal legislative counsel in the capitol and introduced legislation within a day to resolve the problem. Basically, the bill will add language in code to recognize that in the event of a disaster, and the subsequent devaluing of properties afterward, the base taxable value of the TIF will not suffer a drop. The devaluing of properties after a disaster is important, so that property owners don’t pay the full property taxes on properties that no longer hold that value–that’s fair. But the impact to the entire TIF district, which, in this case, is the Bozeman downtown district, is devastating. My bill will fix this discrepancy so that the district as a whole doesn’t take the hit.

I’ve also been working just as hard to pass legislation. I’m sponsoring a cancer drug donation bill that received a great hearing Friday. (My technology TIF district bill did not receive as nice a reception Friday, unfortunately.) Next Friday, two more of my bills will be considered by the Senate, and I hope the newly-introduced TIF bill will be heard in my House Taxation committee soon.

Please know I’m completely dedicated to my city and to my state, and to everyone in Montana. We’re all rallying. I just wanted to give you an update from my desk. –JP

Friends, it’s been a tough couple of weeks, but I and many others are soldiering on. Here’s a taste of some of the activities at the Montana Legislature of late.

On March 11, Chairman Steele gave the State of the Indian Nations address. Here he is in the House chamber, with the magnificent Charlie Russell painting behind him.

On that day, Margie McDonald and Caroline Pease-Lopez, my seatmates, were matchy-matchy in the same jacket:

Wednesday, March 11, the Polynesian Dancers from Dillon, the Polynesian capitol of Montana, came to the House to dance. They did three numbers, and the men in particular were quite frightful (in a good way). I joked with my seatmates that there hadn’t been bare-chested men in the House since last night!

In my House Natural Resources committee, our committee secretary, Shirley Chovanak (a last name as challenging as mine!) gave me a model smart car this past week! Seems almost everyone is as taken with my little smart as I am. See a resemblance? Here’s my smart car at the capitol, and the model smart car on my desk. Maybe I should find a way to paint it red…