North Dakota's 68th Legislative Assembly finished its work in late April. Overall, the session was very positive for agriculture in North Dakota.
Your host, Emmery Mehlhoff visits with NDFB's lobbyists, Pete Hanebutt and Meghan Estenson, about the significant wins and some disappointing losses during the session.
NDFB went into the session with a mission to move animal agriculture forward by supporting a bill that would allow for more capital investment in animal agriculture, as well as zoning bills requiring counties and townships to adhere to the state code. Those efforts were successful and should allow those wishing to grow animal agriculture to be more successful.
NDFB also weighed in on water bills, foreign ownership issues, extension budgeting, property rights and deer baiting, to name just few.
Contact Pete Hanebutt: pete@ndfb.org
Contact Emmery Mehlhoff: emmery@ndfb.org
Learn more about NDFB's policy positions at: ndfb.org/policy
North Dakota's 68th Legislative Assembly finished its work in late April. Overall, the session was very positive for agriculture in North Dakota.
Your host, Emmery Mehlhoff visits with NDFB's lobbyists, Pete Hanebutt and Meghan Estenson, about the significant wins and some disappointing losses during the session.
NDFB went into the session with a mission to move animal agriculture forward by supporting a bill that would allow for more capital investment in animal agriculture, as well as zoning bills requiring counties and townships to adhere to the state code. Those efforts were successful and should allow those wishing to grow animal agriculture to be more successful.
NDFB also weighed in on water bills, foreign ownership issues, extension budgeting, property rights and deer baiting, to name just few.
Contact Pete Hanebutt: pete@ndfb.org
Contact Emmery Mehlhoff: emmery@ndfb.org
Learn more about NDFB's policy positions at: ndfb.org/policy
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[00:09] Emmery Mehlhoff: Welcome to Straight talk with NDFB. This is your host, Emmery Mehlhoff. The 2023 Legislative session has all wrapped up, and the legislators have gone home. So I sat down oith your NDFB lobbying team, Pete Hanebutt and Meghan Estenson, to give a legislative wrap up to talk about all of the successes and changes made this session for agriculture in North Dakota. Join us for this episode.
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[00:37] Emmery: Welcome to Straight talk with NDFB. Today I'm in Bismarck at the Bismarck office, sitting with your lobbying duo Pete Hanebutt and Meghan Estenson, and we are chatting about the 2023 Legislative Assembly, about all of the successes and different things that have happened during this session. And so hi, Pete, Meghan, how are you guys post session here? Are you in recovery for the long four months?
[01:07] Pete Hanebutt: I believe I'm starting to catch my breath. We'll put it that way. In recovery, maybe not, but starting to catch my breath.
[01:12] Meghan Estenson: Yeah, it's been a pretty long four months, but looking forward to wrapping it all up.
[01:18] Emmery: What I'm the most interested to hear from you guys to start out here is what has been your impressions of this session? I know, Pete, you kind of become an old farm hand at this whole deal. This is not your first rodeo, and so you have probably an interesting perspective about this session as compared to others. We're post redistricting some of that stuff, a lot of new faces at the Capitol. So could you tell us about what your impressions of the session have been?
[01:49] Pete: Certainly a lot of new faces around the Capitol and new leadership in both the House and the Senate. So it has been a dynamic, bellwether change this session. In 30 years of being around lobbying in different places, this one is one of the more unique ones. It's not the weirdest because certainly things follow a good process in North Dakota, but it has been definitely a change in how the dynamic works. And you can see the personalities of the two new leaders in both the House and the Senate that has changed the way things have happened. It's been a good session, particularly good session for agriculture in North Dakota, but it's been a little bit unique. Maybe if the same leadership stays in charge for the next couple of sessions, we'll line out into a normal pattern of things. But there is not a normal pattern of things when you have new leadership, because you have to learn their likes and their dislikes and the way they handle situations, and it's all been very good. Past leadership in the last Legislature was great for us to deal with as well. It's just different. And so you have to get used to the differences between their personalities. And then when you couple that with all the freshmen legislators, when you look at that freshman class in the Senate and realize it's almost a third of the group, and then there are so many in the House just kind of screams capital letters. Why in the world do we need term limits? We have so many new people.
[03:17] Emmery: Okay, Meghan, you've been a citizen of North Dakota for some time now, but this is your first legislative session, I believe. So what have been your impressions of the process?
[03:26] Meghan: Yeah, so this is my first legislative session. I spent about a decade in D.C.. so definitely have a little bit of a different perspective. And honestly, this session was really exciting. It was my first time really being involved with the state legislative process. And overall, I have learned a lot and also have really come away with a really great respect for North Dakota and how our legislative process works. And also, honestly, my first impression of the Legislature, I would really like to see maybe some younger people in the Legislature. I looked around in December when everyone was getting sworn in, and, I mean, frankly, we have a lot of pretty old farmers and ranchers sitting in our legislative body. And I think the thing that's really surprised me is that these old farmers and ranchers are honestly phenomenal legislators. They are so smart and intelligent, and these are people who are running multimillion dollar businesses and making business decisions. And frankly, four months in, they are making great decisions for our state. It's been really educational, and I think we have a really high caliber of legislators and really have loved the experience and the opportunity to work with the Farm Bureau under Pete's tutelage. It's been really fun.
[04:50] Pete: I think it's interesting to think about the balance between the seasoned, gray haired crowd that I belong to and then the youthful exuberance of the freshmen, and some of the freshmen are obviously retired people as well. But that balance of experience versus no experience of looking at things of, "We've always done it this way," versus "Can we try doing it a different way?" That's an interesting balance and an interesting dynamic in any legislature. It's just been more in the forefront this session with all the new people, both young and old.
[05:22] Emmery: Our legislative session is something that happens in North Dakota every two years. In most people's mind, they're aware of it. You see it on the news, you're aware that it's happening. But something that you kind of find out during the process or afterwards is how are the changes that the legislators make this year going to affect things on our farms and ranches? What would you say some of the biggest changes farmers and ranchers are going to experience out on the countryside as far as either new regulations or new opportunities that might be available now? Let's just touch on that.
[06:00] Pete: Well, in this session, I believe we've taken a huge step forward to increase the opportunity for animal agriculture in this state. North Dakota traditionally had been a wheat state for years, and we didn't think as much as a collective group, we didn't think as much about corn and soybeans and having markets for those products. But as our state becomes more of a corn and soybean state, we definitely need someplace to market those grains. And as we have crush plants moving here for soybeans and we have ethanol plants moving here for corn, there are an awful lot of products that we could do a better job with, I'll put it that way. And so having animal agriculture in a state which we rank woefully behind all of our neighbors, having animal agriculture increase in this state provides a better opportunity for those corn and soybean farmers here. Certainly raises their basis and gives them better price. And since we're becoming more of a corn and soybean state, this just makes sense that we need to increase animal agriculture in this state.
So, very happy with the fact that in this session we have moved a whole package of bills that should increase animal agriculture in this state. And of course, the big one that everyone's talking about, house Bill 1371, which is freedom of farming and business practices in this state. For years we've had an anti-corporate farming law in this state, and it has choked the opportunity to be a business partner with someone you're unrelated to. It has choked the opportunity for outside investment in our state. It's been painted with the brush that says this is corporate farming, this is Wall Street agriculture. Those things are hardly true, but it's been painted with that brush in a big way. When you think about 49 other states not having laws like ours, and they have had very active animal agriculture industry, and yet we have not we've lost that over the years because we haven't had the opportunity to partner with anyone who wasn't a family member. We haven't had the opportunity to have investment money come in to help us grow. So it has strangled our animal sector in this state. So 1371, with the signing of that today, we think that it will open up the floodgates and allow a lot of opportunities for animal agriculture in this state and by doing so, increase markets for the grains in our state.
And so between that bill and a couple of zoning bills, the Farm Bureau zoning bill was House Bill 1423, which will help us with some of the problems we've had with local zoning that has gone against what the code says for what animal feeding operations should have for setbacks and other things. We've had a lot of folks that we've been in court fighting townships and other folks where they have gone beyond their authority to regulate animal agriculture. We're going to fix some of that with 1423.
The Soybean Association has a bill that will help counties and townships get their zoning ordinances up to snuff and then a couple of other bills. There's a Senate Bill 2371 that is designating Ag friendly counties. And there's a few bills that are allowing for tax credits for some of the equipment involved in animal agriculture. And finally, the Ag Commissioner's budget itself has some money in it to be an incentive program for animal agriculture. So I feel like we're going to take a great leap forward in animal agriculture with this session. So there's a big package of bills that should help us. I think it helps all of agriculture. I'm very proud of the activity we've had at this legislative session in the 68th Assembly.
[09:38] Meghan: So there were obviously some bills sort of in the water policy realm this session that are going to provide some more clarification and streamline some processes and ambiguities that are kind of out there. And so some of the things we're going to see in the water policy realm, we had a bill, 2020 that's going to help alleviate the tax burden that is on some and sort of help spread that out to everybody that's benefiting from these drainage projects. Also in the water realm, we have Senate Bill 2036 which is going to provide some clarity and remove some ambiguity in streamlining the regulations for water drainage projects.
[10:23] Emmery: That's a really big piece for our crop producers out there, particularly on the east side of the state that do a significant amount of water drainage and have to deal with just assessment drains and different things like that. So having that tax burden shared by all who benefit from it is significant and then also just making it easier to install these projects which really make crop ground better to plant because you don't have as much water issues and infiltration issues. So let's talk about other issues that North Dakota Farm Bureau has been tracking during the legislative session. What are some of the big successes that you both would say you've seen?
[11:06] Meghan: Yeah, so I think one thing that's really interesting in this session, I'm sure that Pete, who's been here for an eternity, can sort of attest to
[11:14] Pete: [laughs] Thank you.
[11:15] Meghan: I mean that respectfully. One issue that there was a lot of controversy and a lot of discussion around was really this foreign ownership issue. And originally there were four bills that were sort of the pool that address this topic. And this is something that the Farm Bureau at the time, we didn't have any direct policy on this, but we knew this was probably something we wanted to be involved in. And so early on in the session we had gotten together with our legislative task force and sort of discussed these four bills and where we wanted to be at and if we wanted to be weighing in and supporting this issue. And ultimately the bill that we thought sort of had the best chance was Senate Bill 2371. And this was a bill stayed very close to its original form and intent. And basically this bill is sort of a foreign adversary bill and it just prevents foreign adversaries from purchasing property in the state. And so the foreign adversary list is a federal list that's maintained. Currently there are five different countries who are on that list. And also an addition to this was a study and this was added, I think, kind of late in the game. And this is just basically long term looking at this issue and how we can look at addressing it in the future and the best way to be sort of effective in this space.
Another bill that actually survived, which I personally was a little bit surprised about, ended up becoming pretty substantial and went through a really long series of edits to be a good bill. And basically this bill is different than the other one in that it basically limits ownership of agricultural land. And so it doesn't have the foreign adversary component, but it just ultimately limits individuals or foreign governments from purchasing land that's specifically agricultural. And one of the issues with this was I know there's entities that do business here that are foreign that we like working with. And so this bill really appropriately addresses kind of a carve out for those entities.
[13:27] Emmery: And this whole foreign ownership conversation really came up after the Fufeng project up in Grand Forks area, where Chinese company came in and bought up agricultural land to build a processing facility really close to an Air Force base. And there was some concern with that and ultimately the commission ended up shutting it down, but the concern was broad enough that it brought about some legislation.
[13:53] Meghan: Yes, that's right, Emmery. It was definitely a very controversial topic. People are very passionate about this topic. There was a lot of testimony, and this is something people really care about. And overall, these bills had great support. There was very little dissent on either floor. And I think everybody was really happy to see legislation in this field.
[14:15] Pete: I think it's a balance for people to say we won't do business with those people who are clearly our enemies, but then there's those other folks that we want to do business with. In agriculture, a lot of us do business with a company named Bayer, an ag chemical company and fertilizer company and all that ag science company that is based in Europe, and we want to keep doing business with them. And that if they have a little research plot here to help themselves get better for what we need, that's great. That's a little different than trying to deal with the North Koreans as an example. And so I think a lot of people would agree that some foreign business is good, some foreign ownership is bad. And so that's the balance that this Legislature struck and it seems to be going forward in the right direction.
[15:05] Emmery: So what are some of the other pieces of legislation that have been passed that will be good for our farmers and ranchers out there?
[15:13] Pete: Well, I think it's nice to highlight and joy to be able to highlight the fact that our extension research funding move forward without any dissent in the Senate. And we as Farm Bureau have always had policy of supporting our extension research and all those types of things that help us in agriculture going forward. And so that research and extension funding and all the things that that implies, at NDSU, it's always important for our Legislature to reinvest in the state through that type of thing that can help all of agriculture through our land grant university. So that's a great thing to see it pass. Their general budget passed previously and then the specifics to the extension research funding went passed last evening and all the ag groups are involved in supporting that kind of thing. By the time you think about the main research center, the agronomy farms and all the other stuff that that Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, all the things that are encompassed in that, they have deep-seated impact in North Dakota agriculture and we're glad to see that pass without any kind of dissent.
[16:19] Emmery: What are some of the things that are a disappointment or things that got put into a place where we're going to have to deal with them when they come up?
[16:30] Pete: Some things that we have been disappointed in, in this session, I would say several of the private property rights things in the big picture of things have been very disappointing. We had a bill that dealt with pore space that was just for a number of reasons, it just was not handled very well and did not receive a whole lot of support. Some of that was some of the folks who were associated with that bill, and it just went down in flames, sadly, in the Senate. Never really got off the ground. And Jeff Magrum did a great job to try to do what he could do to keep that going, but it just didn't go anywhere. And so that was a disappointment.
We had another disappointment in the baiting issue with deer. Alive, well and good coming out of the House, came out of the Senate committee alive, well and good, with six positive votes and no dissenting votes. When it comes out of committee six to nothing, you don't expect any problems with it. And unfortunately, some folks in the Senate that had nothing to do with the bill jumped on board and shot it down for their own personal reasons and it was very disappointing. None of the ag groups saw that it was in trouble at all. And we honestly didn't work it on the floor because coming out of the committee six to nothing with no dissent, nobody thought it was in trouble. And it got shot down by folks who were not associated with agriculture in any kind of way. And it made for a real riff on the Senate floor for several days as Senators felt like they were being stabbed in the back by their colleagues on the other side of the floor and that was disappointing. So sometimes the personalities involved get rid of things and take things off the table and you couldn't change it no matter what. And that's a shame, but that's the way it happens and so you're always going to have disappointments in any legislative session. We've had a few bills that have had struggles that wouldn't have needed to if you just looked at it on the black and white on paper. But the personalities involved sometimes get things shot down and it just happens every session where sometimes something doesn't go anywhere. Not because of the merits of the issue, but because of the personalities involved.
[18:30] Emmery: So with every legislative session there is always a budget because there are projects and agencies and different things that need to be funded and we all pay taxes. And so how has the budget landed this session?
[18:42] Pete: It's kind of an interesting thing to watch the budgets throughout the seasons that I have been here. It's no secret that this state has plenty of money in the coffers as it were, because we have not only a healthy ag economy, but we also have an oil economy and an energy economy. And so between the energy sector and the ag sector, those two things drive the economy in this state. Granted, they're driven by commodity prices worldwide, but some of those commodities aren't the things that our members raise. But it is definitely a free market world economy and sometimes things can go south and not be as much revenue for the state. But we are currently in a cycle where the state has plenty of money and that unfortunately puts us in the mindset of some legislators that we should spend that money.
I will say that leadership in this state, previous leadership in this state, has been extremely smart in letting this Legacy Fund build so that we do not rob from that and cheat our grandchildren out of that inheritance. But there is spending that in our mind as an ag organization is climbing at too fast of a pace. However, it's not climbing at the pace that it once did and so slowing the growth of spending is important. That doesn't mean that some of these projects weren't needed. But there's certainly some price tag things in there that made a lot of legislators scratch their head and votes, that made people think, "Gosh darn, we're setting ourselves up for spending that is unsustainable and we have to be very cautious with that going forward." So we'll just have to see how that goes.
On the tax front though, we're getting a good tax package coming out of this session, $515 million tax plan that is going to not only give tax break to almost every citizen in the state one form or another, it's definitely leaned toward the older fixed income citizens and voters and their tax burden as homeowners. And then it also gives some tax breaks for income tax. And so it's a great big package. It's hard to unpack it all and know what all the ramifications are at this stage. But I know it's going to be good for the majority of the taxpayers across the state. And they went this direction away from what originally was promised, was looked at as a flat tax and that was just not palatable. And so they found a way to give the most tax relief to the most citizens possible. And that's this $515 million package that the governor signed yesterday.
[21:20] Meghan: Other thing that's just really exciting is the money that's going to be coming for rural infrastructure. And that's something that has been really important to the North Dakota Farm Bureau. And we have policy on this issue and we are really happy that there's going to be funding going to rural counties and townships for bridges and other infrastructure this year.
[21:41] Emmery: Let's just briefly touch on any other legislation out there that is of interest to NDFB or to the members.
[21:49] Pete: I think one of our proudest issues this session would be our health care coverage package. This is not healthcare insurance, but is healthcare coverage for members of any farm organization. The bill was not written specifically to make a carve out for North Dakota Farm Bureau, but Senate Bill 2349 allows farm organizations to offer a health care benefit to their members. And this is something that in the national Farm Bureau network. There are 6 million people in the Farm Bureau network across all the states. Tennessee Farm Bureau has been offering healthcare coverage for 70 years and other states have joined their confederation. And so we are joining with Michigan, Indiana, Kansas, South Dakota is our closest neighbor. Texas is involved with this. Several state Farm Bureaus have joined together. When you get that many members, it's able to pencil out across, spreading out the risk across a vast pool of people. And so we, with the passage of Senate Bill 2349, are going to be allowed to join the Tennessee network to take the regulatory authority out of our state, put it with the Tennessee Insurance Commissioner, as these other states have done. Our insurance commissioner was very supportive of this idea. We had very little pushback. One of the network providers was a little concerned about some things. Initially independent insurance agents were a little concerned and we fixed that part of the bill for them. And so we are going to be able to join this huge confederation of folks in other state Farm Bureaus so that we can provide a health care benefit to our members. And our colleagues in other states say it's been a great benefit to their members and so we hope to provide that to our members before too long. We'll have a few regulatory hoops to jump through and have some contracts to fulfill and we will figure out how to make this happen. But that's going to be a great benefit to the members of North Dakota Farm Bureau.
[23:47] Emmery: And that's significant too, because with the price of health care now, a lot of farms and ranches have to supplement their income. They have to get a town job, not because they need supplemental income, but just because they need health insurance. And it's hard to write a $20,000 check for a premium to a health insurance company. I'm excited to see where that goes.
[24:09] Pete: Yeah, this might not fit everyone because a number of people have their own plans already, and they're happy with their plans. But for that farm and ranch family that is living in extreme western North Dakota where one spouse or the other would have to leave Squaw Gap and go to Watford City, Williston or Beach to find an off farm job just to get the health care coverage that they need, this really fits a niche for those folks. And so we've obviously seen this be positive in other states. And so we hope that this is a wonderful benefit for our members and it's something that we've talked about for quite a while. The board has had a strategy on it for a long time and we were able to get the legislation passed with very little dissent. All things considered. There was some dissent in the Senate on the first passage, but by the time we worked out some of the issues in the House, there were very few negative votes in the House and less in the Senate when it went back across the other side. So people started seeing it as a benefit, understanding the purpose of the legislation, knowing that it is not insurance. But when you think about some people are familiar with what's called a healthcare ministry, it's a lot more akin to that type of thing. By letting our members join this larger pool of folks based in Tennessee and allowing us to have some coverage and offer that as a membership benefit for all the folks in North Dakota that want to join Farm Bureau.
[25:28] Meghan: Yeah, I just want to add on to that. This is really a piece of legislation, this session that's been really exciting for me to be a part of, and this is something that really will have a big impact for a lot of rural families in North Dakota. I specifically grew up on a farm and ranch, and my parents had five kids and my mom and many of our neighbors wives were in the position of trying to balance raising a family, working on the farm and ranch, and also having to have a job in town strictly for the reason of providing health insurance. I have great friends right now who are married to farmers and are going through that in this part of their life as well. And luckily, a few days ago I got to share with my girlfriend this amazing piece of legislation that we're rolling out. And as a bit of a financial nerd, it's really exciting. I know in South Dakota who passed this last year that members were seeing a savings of $6,000 to $18,000 a year. And for families, that is significant savings that's really going to affect their day to day life and really make their lives a little bit easier. So I think that's something we can be really proud of this session.
[26:44] Emmery: Just as a final thing, is there any other pieces of legislation of interest? I know earlier in the season I visited with Representative Anna Novak, who was talking about some ESG issues. Do we have an update on where those are at?
[27:01] Meghan: Yes. So as I was saying earlier, really this session, you're really seeing a concentration and focus on a few topics, and ESG or environmental social governance is one of those topics that really received a lot of attention this session. And it seems that there's a large appetite for this type of legislation addressing this problem. And so originally this session, again, we started out with four bills that each sort of took a different approach to look at this and address this. At this point, we've sort of distilled it down to one bill that we feel really good about, and that will be House Bill 1429. Basically what this bill does is it puts in place limitations on how state funds can be invested and particularly that they can't be socially invested. Basically what that means is it can't be invested in a way that looks at the environmental, social and governance impact of that investment. Also, this bill has a study component and something that's going to look at basically the long term ESG trends, laws and policies that are going to impact the industries of the state. And one of the goals of this legislation is really making sure that the way the state is investing our money isn't hurting our major industries, and those major industries would be our agriculture and energy industries. This is something that's a part of our national policy. And so we have supported this effort throughout this legislative session.
[28:43] Pete: I think North Dakota was almost on the cutting edge of this last session in addressing it where some of the ESG movement nationally was attacking the energy industry, and we've expanded that a little bit more here. Our major industries, meaning energy and agriculture, are not going to play into the hands of the ESG movement and the Woke movement. So I'm really proud of our state for moving in that direction.
[29:05] Emmery: Well, thank you, Pete and Meghan, for sitting down with me today and proud of both of you for all the hard work that you've done this session in advocating for agriculture for our farmers and ranchers out there. So on behalf of all of the North Dakota Farm Bureau and all of the ag producers out there, thank you for the hard work that you've done.
[29:25] Pete: I'm just glad we went through the session without having to worry about passing a bill that would charge you with DWI for riding a horse while either you were drunk or the horse was.
[29:35] Meghan: [laughs] Right. That would have been a little bit of a messy horse situation.
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[29:42] Emmery: You've been listening to Straight Talk with NDFB. To find out more about all of the issues NDFB has been tracking and all of the successes and changes made for agriculture this session visit us at ndfb.org.
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