Legislative Roundup - Week 6

Bill Would Update Meth Contamination Reporting

A bill advancing in the House of Representatives would require that even properties where methamphetamine has been smoked or used be reported to the state and local health department and listed as inhabitable until deemed safe.

The House Natural Resource Committee voted unanimously on Feb. 8 to push House Bill 381 to the full House for debate.

Under current law, law enforcement officers are required to report properties where meth has been manufactured to both the Department of Environmental Quality and local health authorities. Those properties are then put on a public list of contaminated properties until they are proven to be safe or until they have been decontaminated. Rep. Larry Brewster, R-Billings, is sponsoring House Bill 381, which would also require that officers report properties where meth has been smoked and those too would be listed as inhabitable until they are proven to be safe or until they've been remediated.

"I know there are opportunities for this to be expensive for some people, but if you look at where I live, and your community has to deal with these kinds of issues on a regular basis, they view this as just one more tool to help with that process," Brewster said.

Brewster said properties could be removed from the list once the facility is clean and the decontamination process is up to department standards.

There were no supporters or opponents to the bill at the bill's first committee hearing. Committee members raised questions about the contamination of one room in an apartment complex and what effect that could have on the contamination of the building.

"The extent of the contamination may determine if the entire building is listed, so since the units are separate and one may be contaminated, I don't think at this time, but I could always check, that the entire building is listed as contaminated," Rick Thompson, chief of the Waste Management Bureau at the Department of Environmental Quality, said as an informational witness.

Thompson said following a determination by law enforcement that meth had been made or smoked in a residency, the department hires private clean-up crews to test the area and determine the extent of the contamination. He also said that it could take multiple weeks to clean appropriately, depending on the level of contamination.

Lawmakers will now debate the bill on the House floor.

Lawmakers Discuss Bill That Would Alter Disease Testing Protocol for Livestock

A bill passed by the House of Representatives would require ranchers to corral livestock when the Department of Livestock requests to test animals for disease. The bill is now in the Senate.

Rep. Ross Fitzgerald, R-Fairfield, is sponsoring House Bill 100, which allows the Department of Livestock to levy fees against Montana ranchers if they do not adequately corral animals for inspection of dangerous contaminants and diseases.

"It turned into a requirement to cooperate with the Department of Livestock in testing of herds around the state of Montana to prevent spread of disease. It's a safety and efficiency bill," Fitzgerald said during a hearing on the bill in the Senate Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation Committee on Feb. 7..

Under current law, the department can require livestock testing for diseases and animal health if there is a reasonable threat to animal and human safety. Fitzgerald said this often leads the department to test several herds within the affected area, but currently, owners have no legal obligation to get and present the livestock for testing.

"This means that limited state resources, in terms of personnel and equipment, may need to be used to round up animals from one or multiple pastures," Fitzgerald said.

He also said that this bill will allow the inspections to be more timely if ranchers already have their cattle ready and available to be inspected.

The bill passed through the House 85-11 on Jan. 26 and awaits a vote from the Senate committee.

In 2021, a Minnesota packing plant flagged cattle from Blaine County as having a rare livestock disease called bovine tuberculosis, which led to mass testing and quarantining that fell on the department's shoulders.

Dr. Tahnee Szymanski, assistant state veterinarian of the Department of Livestock, and three others spoke in support of the bill. She said the department tested close to 100 herds within the last year due to the outbreak and that it took a massive amount of staff to corral all the cattle before even beginning the testing process.

Szymanski said the department has worked on several ways to trace diseases like brucellosis and bovine tuberculosis over the past couple of years. Still, there has also been an increase in the department's staff being required to round up animals and do all the heavy lifting during inspections.

"The department is a relatively small entity, and for us to pull crews that are large enough to pull that feat off we were pulling from hundreds of miles away," Szymanski said. "We're trying to model after what we've seen in other states for this similar requirement, have folks present their livestock so that we can complete the testing efficiently."

Dr. Jeanne Rankin, a ranch veterinarian and owner was the only opponent to the bill. She said she supports the bill's principle but was skeptical about the requirement in the bill that owners stay with their livestock during the inspection process and believes the addition of allowing an agent to be present should be enough.

"We have a lot of absentee owners, we may have, I might be out there after a terrible car crash and be in a wheelchair, and I'm not going to be much help," Rankin said.

Rankin also said that she is against the bill adding fees into the Montana code for ranchers who don't meet the requirements. She said she would rather see the fees be kept in department rules because the department already can administer fees on ranchers based on the cost of the operation.

The committee did not take immediate action on the bill.

Bill Would Give Tribal Computer Science Programs a Boost

Lawmakers are debating a bill that would expand on a computer science program for schools on reservations established in the 2021 legislative session by adding additional training for teachers in elementary and middle schools.

Rep. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Box Elder, is sponsoring House Bill 346.

"There is a lot of potential, and perhaps maybe in the near future, this program is successful, is going to be opened up to all schools, all across the whole state, because as we know, this technology isn't going any place and I think we might as well take advantages of the opportunity," Windy Boy said

The bill moves the program to be overseen by the Department of Labor from a joint position the department had with the Office of Public Instruction. HB 346 will also add $16,000 to the already existing $32,000 that the governor's budget allocates to the program.

The additional $16,000 will be used as scholarships for elementary and middle school teachers on reservations to get educated on computer science to open up classes for students to take courses on the subject. There would be scholarships for two high school teachers available to get the certification.

Dylan Klapmeier, the governor's education adviser, said Gov. Greg Gianforte supports the bill and said it is vital to expanding computer science opportunities for Native American students.

"Starting kids in this subject early is beneficial to their progress in the field," Klapmeier said. "Computing jobs are the largest source of new wages in the United States, and these jobs are in every industry and every state, and they are projected to grow at twice the rate of all other jobs."

Klapmeier said the governor is committing to expanding computer science opportunities across the state because it is one of the largest growing job markets in the country.

"Studying computer science in elementary school is correlated with higher test scores in math, science, and English. As the governor often says, computers are here to stay, and technology has removed geographical barriers to many careers," Klapmeier said.

Three others supported the bill and shared that starting these kids in programs earlier would create new job opportunities on tribal lands.

"There are several pieces of this program that we believe are essential to successful implementation, and we appreciate the recommended changes that are in the bill," Rob Watson, executive director of the School Administrators of Montana, said. "We believe that these types of skills are essential for work in the 21st century."

Watson said that the bill and continued funding of the program supports the economic growth on tribal lands and that these skills are becoming essential for work after schooling.

No one testified against the bill and the committee did not take immediate action on the bill.

Lawmakers Discuss a Bill that Allows Out-Of-State Aerial Hunters to Hunt in Montana

The Senate Agriculture, Livestock, and Irrigation Committee advanced a bill Thursday that would allow non-residents to hunt coyotes and red foxes on private property from the air.

The bill cleared the House 75-24 on Jan. 26 before moving to the Senate.

Rep. Brandon Ler, R-Savage, is co-sponsoring House Bill 104, which would remove a regulation that non-residents can't hunt from airplanes in counties that do not share a border with another state..

"This just takes away that section of code, so now any county in the state of Montana can hire an aerial hunter to hunt anywhere in the state," Ler said. "This is good policy for the cattle producers and sheep producers in the state of Montana."

The state currently allows for aerial hunting on private property, but only for residents. There is an exception to this law if the county is connected to another state – for example, ranches in Carbon County could contract a gunner and pilot from Wyoming to hunt the predators on their land.

The Department of Livestock has a program that allows pilots to register their planes through the Montana Department of Transportation Aeronautics Division and obtain an aerial hunting license to protect livestock on plots of land.

Mike Honeycutt, chief executive officer of the Montana Department of Livestock, and two others supported the bill, including representatives from the Montana Stockgrowers Association and the Montana Farm Bureau.

Honeycutt said there are currently 30 registered pilots in the program but that this number would grow if out-of-state pilots were able to hunt everywhere in the state. He said the program kills about 15,000 coyotes annually.

"We want to make it a viable program, and we want to maintain it. We want to give landowners all the tools in the toolbox to deal with coyote depredation that we can keep available to them," Honeycutt said.

Hunters cannot hunt species that Fish, Wildlife, and Parks manage, and that leaves only coyotes and red foxes to be the aim of aerial hunters.

Marc Cooke, president of the Wolves of the Rockies, opposed the bill saying that the lack of enforcement with more hunters could lead to managed species being hunted on purpose or accident.

"This will lead to illegal gunning, illegal killing, and illegal poaching of wolves and other wildlife. The reason I say that is law enforcement with FWP has a huge parcel of land they have to protect and watch over, but recently about a year or so ago in the Big Hole Valley, there were two wolves killed from aerial gunning," Cooke said. "My thinking is this isn't an isolated incident, and also because law enforcement with FWP is spread so thin, nobody's going to catch it."

Cooke also said that out-of-state pilots are at a disadvantage when navigating the state's terrain, creating a safety problem for the pilots, gunners, and residents of the area.

Caven Wade is a student reporter with the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Broadcasters Association, the Montana Newspaper Association and the Greater Montana Foundation. He can be reached at [email protected].