BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - The North Dakota Legislature has missed its goal of finishing its work five days before the constitutional 80-day limit.
Monday is Day 76. Lawmakers had hoped to bank five days so that they could return to the Capitol to address additional impacts from oil price swings.
The session opened in January with 853 measures.
Data from the Legislative Council, the Legislature’s research arm, show 31 bills awaited action late Friday.
In the penultimate week before session’s end, lawmakers dealt with likely the most contentious bills of the session. Those include approving a new framework that cuts the oil price-triggered exemption in exchange for a lower tax rate and revamping a formula used to distribute oil and gas production tax revenue, a move aimed at giving more funding to communities to help pay for the consequences of energy development.
And after several unsuccessful attempts in previous sessions, the Legislature has finally agreed to fund a new $5 million home for North Dakota’s governor, with $1 million of the cost to be raised from private sources.
Still ahead are big spending bills, including the Office of Management and Budget, an executive-branch agency that compiles the governor’s budget proposals. Also pending are spending bills for the attorney general’s office, the Water Commission, the Public Employees Retirement System, higher education and for K-12 education.
Also pending is proposed funding for a rail safety program in the Public Service Commission’s budget.
The program had been a campaign platform for Republican Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak when she ran for the position last year. GOP Gov. Jack Dalrymple also had included the funding for the program in his budget to help prevent oil train accidents, like the one that happened in his hometown of Casselton that left an ominous cloud over the city and led some residents to evacuate.
North Dakota’s Legislature ended its longest session ever in 2013, when it logged 80 days. Lawmakers met for more than 20 hours straight on the last day of that session.
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