by Ken Midkiff
Chapter Director
The media throughout the state has made much of the just-concluded “do nothing” session of the Missouri General Assembly — bemoaning the paltry number of bills passed.
While it is quite true that several significant and complex pieces of legislation fell by the wayside during the last few days of the last week, and some of these bills were the results of hours and hours of negotiations and language-crafting, it is also true that the General Assembly accomplished much. In addition, many of the dead bills are only temporarily deceased and will or must return next year — and the up side is that most of the difficulties and differences have been resolved.
So, bills on health care, public records, judicial and administrative procedural changes, and tobacco settlement have come a long way down the road — and it is assumed that most of the rancor and acrimony have been vented. Without pending elections and subsequent grandstanding, these meritorious efforts will succeed.
There is one other consideration: Jim Pauley, now retired but who for years represented rural regions of Boone County in the Missouri House of Representatives, told me , half jokingly, that “if I vote ‘no’ all the time, that will be the correct position 90% of the time ñ— maybe we’d be better off making sure that the laws on the books are enforced, rather than making new ones.” The more I’m around, the truer those thoughts ring.
But, all that aside, the immediate-past session of the General Assembly actually accomplished quite a bit:
-The state budget, which occupies much attention of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees and Sub-Committees, passed without the usual thunderstorms of outrage and protest. Discussions centered on the merits of funding various state programs, and while there was debate on what levels of funding to provide to various state agencies, there were not the usual partisan or even personal non-productive accusations hurled.
-The General Assembly renewed and restructured the Hazardous Waste fee statutes — making the system of designating who pays what more equitable. The general principle is that those who generate hazardous wastes should pay the costs for proper disposition and for the costs incurred by the State for overseeing the program.
-Likewise, the Wastewater Permit fee statutes — set to expire at the end of this year — were renewed, with a new fee structure established, that is somewhat more equitable than the current one. It was determined by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources that some categories of industry were paying more than their fair share for the privilege of dumping wastewater into our state’s streams, rivers, and lakes — and other industries or facilities were not paying nearly enough. The new fee structure is based to some degree on the costs to administer the program for a specific set of dischargers. For instance, large Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, that are very costly to the state overseers, will pay more for their permit fees. Municipalities will pay a fee that is essentially based on the number of residents that are hooked up to the sewer system.
-Also adopted were measures establishing a dry-cleaning “mini-superfund” system, and a system for water pollution control bonds.
-Among those bills that didn’t make it were a number that shouldn’t have: bad ideas brought forth by polluting industries to give themselves specials breaks. The worst of the worse was a bill promoted by agribusiness organization that would have established an Agriculture Advocates Council within the Department of Agriculture that would have allowed this state entity to sue other state agencies. This measure was in desperate need of a wooden stake through the heart, but one was not delivered until there was only twenty minutes left in the session.
-The bill that would have required state legislative approval of federal acquisition of lands within Missouri was amended so that legislative check–off is only required in cases where the federal government is exercising condemnation — taking the lands by legal force. There seems to be an appropriate role for the state legislature in assisting unwilling landowners whose properties are being taken away; but the bill as passed does not interfere with those who are willing sellers or who are in dire need of a federal buy-out — such as occurred with flood–plain landowners in the Floods of ‘93 and ‘95.
It is indeed a shame that some bills got lost in the shuffle and disarray of the last few days of the legislative session — but it is a blessing that others were shot down. However, if there is a genuine gripe shared by literally all it is that the General Assembly does procrastinate until the last few days of the session and then attempts to deal with everything at once.
Tempers flare, patience is exhausted. Amendments are stacked on top of amendments. But, in the end, the absolutely essential work — the budget — gets passed, good bills get passed, bad bills go down. Other bills will be back next year.
Democracy — which is what is at work here — is messy, but it still a helluva lot better than anything else.