HB 189 confirmed dead

By CHRIS PETERSON

for the Bigfork Eagle

A bill that would have set aside about $300,000 for baseline water quality monitoring on the North Fork of the Flathead is dead, a local lawmaker said last week.

The good news, however, is the funding for the study is part of a bill that will fund the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.

With any luck, said Columbia Falls lawmaker Doug Cordier, that bill will survive.

Cordier, a Democrat representing House District 3, said the funding, minus about $18,000, is part of House Bill 7, which did make it through the House before the transmittal deadline to the Senate.

State Sen. Dan Weinberg of Whitefish said that there was a good chance the money would also make it through the Senate as well.

Weinberg, Cordier and Whitefish Representative Mike Jopek were on hand last week to talk about the Legislative session and how they thought it was going.

The best that might be said is they were cautiously optimistic.

House Republicans have chopped up the state budget this year into several separate pieces of legislation — a move that hasn’t proven popular with Gov. Brian Schweitzer or Democrats in both houses.

While the budget battle has been grabbing headlines in the dailies, Cordier said there’s more cooperation between the two parties on many other issues.

“There are a a lot of 51-49 votes,” Cordier noted. “But there are a lot more 72-28 votes.”

Jopek said there’s a “posturing” in the first half of the session, but the three men agreed there’s about 13 moderate Republicans in the House that will likely make things happen in the coming weeks. The Republicans control the house by a slim margin and the Democrats control the Senate by a slim margin.

“I would hope people would come together … so we don’t see anyone get mud on their faces,” Cordier said.

Weinberg said things were far less partisan in the Senate.

“We don’t do each other in,” he said. “We don’t play games.”