The Haxtun-Fleming Herald - What can we reason but from what we know? -Alexander Pope

State legislators resumed the 2021 session of the General Assembly Tuesday after a five-week break.

While lawmakers weren’t at the Capitol, it didn’t mean they weren’t working: the Joint Budget Committee met throughout the break to work on adjustments to the 2020-21 State budget, known as supplementals and legislative committees held hearings with state agencies to review those agencies’ budgets and programs.

It also gave lawmakers, their staff and members of the media who cover the legislature time to get vaccinated so that the return to the State Capitol doesn’t become a possible super spreader COVID event. At least a half-dozen lawmakers and aides have tested positive for the virus.

Lawmakers now have 117 days left in the 2021 session, although whether they will meet until mid-June is still to be determined.

Northeastern Colorado’s lawmakers – Senator Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling and Representative Rod Pelton, R-Cheyenne Wells, recently spoke about their priorities for the session.

Sonnenberg’s priorities include water, livestock, conservation easements, stimulus resources for agricultural shows, including the State Fair; and what the State division of motor vehicles does with the information provided for your driver’s license.

Pelton, who was elected to a leadership post in the House minority caucus last November, plans to watch out for bills that affect rural Colorado and ag. “There’s still a huge urban-rural divide,” he said recently. “I have a feeling it won’t get any better this session.”

Pelton’s legislative agenda will again focus on behavioral health, an issue that he has been successful on in the past several sessions. One bill would set up a behavioral health administration, to be cosponsored with Rep. Mary Young, D-Greeley. Pelton said that money has come in for behavioral health in several different agencies and programs, yet no one knows how much or where. Their bill would attempt to get behavioral health programs under one roof, to increase transparency and efficiency and so that more money goes to those who need the help.

Another Pelton bill will deal with the State’s fence law. Pelton explained that if you buy a piece of property, and it has had a fence for 20 years, under the law that’s the new property line. For agricultural land, that could be as much as 20 or 30 acres fenced outside of your property. This bill would revamp the Colorado fence law, requiring that property lines go back to survey markers. “I want to make sure it’s fair,” he said.

Pelton was chosen to be House minority whip for the 2021 and 2022 sessions, the first Eastern Plains lawmaker to hold that position since 2007 to 2010, when Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, was the whip. Pelton explained that the whip monitors the bills headed to committees and the House floor and to work with members who know the subject well and can talk about the issue.

When it comes time to vote in the House, the whip also ensures his members are ready to vote. He said he’s excited to see how the caucus leadership moves forward, with leaders from the Western Slope and Eastern Plains. “We cover the whole State with our leadership,” Pelton explained. “It’s good that rural Colorado has representation in leadership” in the House.

Among the first bills Sonnenberg will sponsor in the 2021 session: making it easier for producers to sell their livestock meat direct to consumers. It’s part of his longstanding effort to educate urban Coloradans about agriculture.

“It’s a challenge to know where food comes from,” Sonnenberg told this reporter recently. His bill would make it easier for a rancher, whether for beef, pork, chicken or goats, to sell to the consumer.

Current State law bars the selling of refrigerated meat at farmer’s markets. His bill would allow producers to sell to order. A consumer would own a share of an animal and process it as they see fit, without USDA inspections.

Another priority is health insurance for co-ops. A State law limits how a farmers-owned co-op can buy health insurance. That includes a requirement that a co-op has to be in business prior to 1980 to buy health insurance from a new company. His bill would change that date and would provide co-ops with a larger pool of health insurance providers from which to choose.

Sonnenberg has advocated for stimulus support for ag shows, such as the National Western or the State fair. That got shot down by the Governor’s office during the three-day session in January. However, he plans to keep working at it, hoping to gain support from Senate President Leroy Garcia, D-Pueblo, in whose district the state fair resides.

Conservation easements are also part of Sonnenberg’s priorities for 2021.

Alan Gentz of Sterling, who co-chaired a working group in 2019 on conservation easements, said the bill will deal with reparations for those who lost millions due to abuses by the Department of Revenue. The bill would direct a portion of the $45 million annually set aside for tax credits. The tax credits would be allowed if the taxpayer received a federal tax deduction for the easement from the Internal Revenue Service.

Sonnenberg plans to revive a bill from 2020 that attempted to resolve a flawed complaint process within the Department of Agriculture for commercial pesticide applicators.

The bill comes from three complaints filed between 2012 and 2014. The Department of Ag admitted they lacked evidence about misuse of pesticides by the three applicators, who wound up spending an inordinate amount of time and money defending themselves.

Sonnenberg’s 2020 bill required the Department to notify the applicator about the complaint within 24 hours and to prohibit the department from suspending an applicator’s license if they had not been notified about the complaint. The bill ran into trouble over its expected revenues and the potential to require a taxpayer refund, but given the State’s financial situation, that is not likely to be a problem in 2021.

Sonnenberg also has an agricultural water right bill tied to Morgan County, with Rep. Jeni Arndt, D-Fort Collins, who chairs the House Agriculture, Livestock and Water Committee, as a co-sponsor.

Finally, Sonnenberg plans to sponsor a bill barring the division of motor vehicles within the Department of Revenue from selling drivers’ personal information for a profit. His bill would bar any State agencies from doing the same.