Legislative Update – Week 5 The fifth week of the 2021 South Dakota Legislative session is complete with four weeks remaining. One of the biggest developments this past week is that four members of the House tested positive for COVID-19 and were participating remotely in floor sessions and committee meetings. That fact caused one Senator to also connect remotely. Twenty-one days have been completed and 15 days remain over the next four weeks. Seven days are left till Crossover day, when all bills need to be acted on in their body of origin. SB 87 PASSES! The act to provide for South Dakota Farm Bureau to offer a health benefit plan PASSED the House and is on its way to the Governor for her signature!! On Wednesday, after a debate lasting about an hour, the SD House passed the bill 50 to 16, with 4 excused. With the signature of Governor Noem, SD Farm Bureau will begin working on the details of a major medical health benefit plan with hopes of it being available for purchase by Farm Bureau members by the fall of 2021. This was a TOTAL EFFORT by SDFB leaders, staff and hundreds of Farm Bureau members in making contacts with their legislators. This is a significant achievement that will result in better health care coverage in this state. Below is the list of House members that voted YES on SB 87! Please thank them for supporting this bill and your organization. An extra thanks goes to those who spoke in favor of SB 87 during the House debate: Blare, Miskimins, Vasgaard, Chase, Perry, Gosch, Overweg, Mortensen and Schneider. Their leadership is greatly appreciated. THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING LEGISLATORS FOR VOTING YES ON SB 87 Aaron Aylward Sam Marty Hugh Bartels Liz May Doug Barthel John Mills Arch Beal Rhonda Milstead Rocky Blare Paul Miskimins Shawn Bordeaux Will Mostensen Kirk Chaffee Tina Mulally Roger Chase Scott Odenbach Sydney Davis Marty Overweg Drew Dennert Carl Perry Fred Deutsch Kent Peterson Becky Drury Sue Peterson Caleb Finck Tom Pischke Mary Fitzgerald Tony Randolph Timothy Goodwin Taylor Rehfeldt Spencer Gosch Rebecca Reimer Lana Greenfield Lynn Schneider Randy Gross Bethany Soye Jon Hansen Mike Stevens Steven Hauggard Richard Vasgaard Charlie Hoffman Kaleb Weis Taffy Howard Marli Wiese Greg Jamison Dean Wink Kevin Jensen Nancy York Phil Jensen Trish Lander Other Bills SDFB is following: HB 1028, a bill to clarify who can challenge an application for a water permit and the what and how of that challenge, passed the Senate 24 to 11 and was sent to the Governor. HB 1038, a bill to fund the State Conservation Commission for a total of $500,000 passed the House and was sent to Senate Ag. HB 1042, a bill to increase the incentive for vegetative buffers along South Dakota waters, lengthen the term of the agreement from 1 year to 10 years and to provide an earlier mowing date for buffers under center pivot irrigation, passed Senate Ag 5 to 0 and was sent to the Senate. HB 1046, a bill to provide liability protection from nuisance or frivolous lawsuits for businesses and other entities regarding COVID 19 passed the Senate 29 to 3 and was sent to the Governor. HB 1085, a bill to clarify the conditions necessary to qualify as ag land for assessment purposes was amended and passed the House 41 to 27 and sent to Senate Tax. SDFB supports this bill to separate land that is really agriculture from land that is surrounding mansions, vacation homes, hobby farms, etc. HB 1153, a bill to provide $7.5M for Dairy Research and Extension Farm at SDSU passed House Ag and was sent to Appropriations. HB 1237, a bill to provide $4M for local roads passed House Transportation and was sent to Appropriations. SB 52, a bill to extend the length of General Permits for livestock farms from the present 5 years to 10 years passed House Ag, 11 to 0. SB 123, a bill to provide a process for groups and individuals to comment on ballot measures before they are placed on the election ballot passed Senate State Affairs 7 to 1. If you see a lot of bills listed that allocate state monies, the above is a very minimal number compared to what is lying in wait. The Governor announced significant additional monies available for one-time spending in her address this week. There are more than a dozen dealing and affecting agriculture directly. In addition, there are 50 more bills to appropriate money in the House and 34 more in the Senate, all with specific dollar amounts and projects. AND there are at least 3 or 4 dozen placeholder bills that can easily be turned into spending bills. The first two weeks in March will be hectic to sort all of that out. Finally, South Dakota Farm Bureau will be hosting Farm Bureau Day at the Capitol on Thursday, Feb. 18. All members are encouraged to join us at the Capitol and mingle with legislators and fellow Farm Bureau members. We will also be serving a meal to legislators at noon that day. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me. Michael Held SDFB Lobbyist 605-350-0739 [email protected] Helpful Links: View the SDFB bill-tracker list here: https://www.sdfbf.org/Policy-Advocacy/State-Legislative View the details on any bill by clicking this link and typing in the bill number: https://sdlegislature.gov/Session/Bills/44 Find contact information for the Legislators here: https://sdlegislature.gov/Legislators/Contacts/44 .