Last-minute relief (continued)

A QUESTION OF PROCESS

Beyond the matter of whether LD 1305 makes sense from a state-policy point of view is the issue of legislative process.

The amended bill left the Taxation Committee with an 11-2 divided report. Only Representative Hutton and the committee’s House chair, Richard Woodbury, the Yarmouth independent, opposed it. After rounds of passage in the Senate and House — no one who was interviewed remembers any debate on it — the bill was sent to the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee, which divvies up money available in the waning hours of the session before final enactment for those bills that require money.

This year, there was almost no money available to be divvied up. In any case, this bill had no dollar figure attached. Its mandatory fiscal note, written by the legislative Office of Fiscal and Program Review with help from the Maine Revenue Service, said simply and very unusually: "This bill will reduce General Fund revenue beginning in fiscal year 2014-15."

"It’s one of the easiest [fiscal notes] I’ve ever had to do," says Michael Allen, the revenue service’s chief economist. Even though he agrees the fiscal impact potentially could be in the millions, Allen says his office only gauges a bill’s effect on tax revenue for four years — and LD 1305 won’t have an impact for 10 years.

Even if he had to do a fiscal note on a bill to, say, eliminate the state income tax, if it didn’t take effect for 10 years he says he wouldn’t do an analysis on it. This policy is confirmed by Grant Pennoyer, head of the fiscal review office, who adds: "That’s how they get themselves in trouble sometimes," speaking of the legislature’s practice of not requiring analysts to look ahead financially beyond four years.

Given that the bill "never got a full fiscal note," "I don’t understand why Peggy took it off the table," says Representative Hutton, referring to Margaret Rotundo, the Appropriations Committee’s Democratic Senate chair.

Senator Rotundo responds: "If there were bills with no appropriations attached to them, we would vote them out [of committee]." She admits, though, that she found the fiscal note odd.

In an initial phone interview, she seemed confused about who was responsible for sending the bill to the Senate floor to be enacted. In a second interview, she wanted to emphasize the need for the Legislature to develop "how we can extend looking at the fiscal impact a ways out." Maybe the legislative staff needs more resources, she says, to do long-range analysis, and she suggests a study of this question might occur this summer.

Does she have any regret that the bill went to the floor without a long-range fiscal note attached?

"Had we had a fiscal note indicating millions of dollars were involved in 15 years," she says, "it would not have come off the table."

LD 1305 just sort of slid through the Legislature, but the question persists why legislators not prone to favor the paper companies and other big landowners didn’t pay attention. Take Portland Senator Ethan Strimling, a Democratic liberal: He voted for the bill in the Taxation Committee. He bought the forest industry’s and the Baldacci administration’s argument: He says he saw it as an anti-sprawl measure, "a good opportunity to preserve land," and thus "good social policy."

In the confusion of the session’s finale and to some extent throughout the session, many rank-and-file legislators rely greatly on legislative leadership. But leadership, Democrat and Republican, gave no evidence of uneasiness with LD 1305.

Comments a prominent lawmaker, who wishes to avoid being identified as a critic of fellow legislators: "We get close to 2000 bills. This is a citizens’ Legislature. We can’t stay on top of everything . . . If something doesn’t have implications until 10 years from now, it doesn’t get scrutinized as it should, we are so focused on the immediate." And with this bill legislators believed "you are promoting the use of forest land in a way that’s socially responsible."

And the governor? He was not about to raise an alarm. As earlier noted, he signed the bill, and his forest service supported it.

"The governor’s office doesn’t see this as a boondoggle" to the forest industry, says Lynn Kippax, his press secretary. The bill "helps Maine’s forest industry grow and sustain itself," he says. But won’t it be a big financial hit to the state? "I have no comment. I don’t know enough" — and he refers this reporter to the Maine Forest Service.

But his dismissive attitude may not be the last word on this law.

"Maybe we can get the Legislature, if it reconvenes [this year], to repeal it," suggests ever-hopeful activist Jonathan Carter.

Lance Tapley can be reached at ltapley@prexar.com