Agriculture, grazing bills, take circuitous routes through legislature

Some bills start the legislative session as a concept that is discussed and revised in the first weeks until the draft is introduced.  Success for these early concepts is not always guaranteed.

H606, the Agriculture Value Added Income Tax Credit, was such a bill.

H606 was introduced on February 29.  The bill will act as incentive for farmers and ranchers to invest in additional facilities which would add value to agriculture in Idaho through additional processing.  For example: encouraging a dairyman to process his milk into cheese that can be sold, rather than send the milk out of state for processing.  This is a means of increasing jobs in rural areas as well as the amount of Idaho commodities being processed.  The bill provides a tax credit of up to 30% of the investment to build a plant or value added process, capping the amount of the credit at $500,000.  This credit may be utilized annually until the cap is reached or for 14 years.  The legislation has a sunset of 2017.

The concept was revised several times before its introduction.  It was introduced in the House and sent the Revenue & Taxation Committee which sent it to General Orders on the floor for amendment.  On March 30, it was passed as amended by a vote of 62-6-2.

It was sent to the Senate and assigned to the Local Government Committee on March 22.  It has not yet been scheduled for a hearing.

Other bills are printed earlier in the session but do not get heard in committee until later in the session, such as S1271, which deals with management plans for grazing leases.  The bill adds a new section to Idaho Code that requires applicants for grazing leases to submit a grazing management proposal as part of the application.  This lets the Department of Lands evaluate whether the proposal is consistent with the Department’s resource objectives and management expectations for those lands.  If the lease is granted, the proposal becomes the management plan for that lease.

S1271 was introduced on January 30^th and sent to the Senate Resources and Environment Committee.  It was not until March 6^th that committee sent it to the Senate floor where it was passed on a vote of 31-0-4.  The next day it was sent to the House and assigned to the Resources and Conservation Committee.  It was sent to the House floor with a do-pass recommendation.  On March 21^st, almost two months later, it passed and is on its way to the Governor.