Beebe gauging stances on issues
Posted on Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Gov. Mike Beebe said Tuesday that before he issues the proclamation for a special legislative session to raise the state’s severance tax on natural gas, he wants a better grasp of legislative sentiment regarding lowerprofile issues.
Those include Beebe’s desire to strike a law that mistakenly contained language that seems to allow a child of any age to marry with parental consent. Another issue is whether the state should extend a deadline for school districts in Pulaski County to receive state aid for legal fees in desegregation litigation.
Beebe told reporters he visited with House and Senate staff earlier in the day to see if they have finished gauging legislators’ support.
“They are making the calls, and they seem to be noncontroversial at this juncture,” he said.
He said he wants to make sure he has enough support to pass those items promptly before including them on the spe- cial session’s agenda, or “call.” He’s already got the necessary commitments to increase the severance tax and doesn’t want debate over the other two issues to extend the special session longer than three days, which is the constitutional minimum length.
Senate President Pro Tempore Jack Critcher, D-Batesville, said he doubts there will be any problem passing any of the three items.
“I think it’s a slam dunk, in and out in three days,” he said.
Sen. Bob Johnson, D-Bigelow, has said he opposes raising the severance tax, but Critcher said he doubts Johnson, who will be the Senate leader in 2009, will try to stop Beebe’s plan.
“I’m sure he’s a no vote,” Critcher said. “But he realizes he’s in the minority.” He added that Johnson’s third child was recently born so that “the special session is probably the last thing on his mind.” Beebe has said he has 31 of the 35 senators in favor of raising the severance tax and 80 of the 100 House members. The tax increase needs a three-fourths majority from each chamber to become law.
Rep. Robbie Wills, D-Conway, scheduled to be House speaker in 2009, said he wouldn’t be surprised if Beebe gets more than 80 yes votes in the House.
Beebe said if by today he doesn’t get vote counts from the House and Senate on the desegregation and marriage issues he may go ahead and issue the call for the special session without those items. When he gets more information on those issue, he said he could add them to the agenda.
Rep. Will Bond, D-Jacksonville, was the sponsor of the laws that addressed marriage and desegregation.
He was at the Capitol on Tuesday counting votes on the marriage issue.
Act 441 of 2007 left open the possibility that girls of any age could get married with their parents’ consent. Legislators have said that wasn’t their intent. Beebe said he’d like to strike that law and defer a longer-term cleanup of the state’s marriage-age laws to the 2009 regular session.
“A lot of people have ideas about how to re-draft it, on what the minimum age should be,” Bond said. “There are just a lot of competing ideas, so it’s best to take that up in a regular session and get it fixed once and for all.” Act 395 of 2007 authorized the state to pay up to $ 250, 000 to each of the Pulaski County Special and North Little Rock school districts to offset legal fees if the districts are declared by a federal judge to be “unitary,” or meeting desegregation requirements. The law carries a June deadline, and Beebe would like to extend it to November because a federal judge has said he needs more time.
“The districts have done their part so we ought to move that back and give them a chance to get that granted,” Bond said.
Beebe received legislative consensus on the severance tax after reaching a compromise with natural gas producers who pay the tax.
Arkansas’ severance tax is three-tenths of 1 cent per 1, 000 cubic feet of gas. Set in 1957 and based on volume, it doesn’t take into account growth in the price of gas, which has greatly increased since then. The tax raises only about $ 660, 000 a year.
Beebe’s tax would be 5 percent on the proceeds production companies get on the sale of the gas, minus the cost of delivery.
Natural-gas industry experts have said the cost wouldn’t be passed on to customers’ utility bills because the price utilities pay production companies is largely set by the national market.
The plan calls for a 36-month reduced rate of 1. 50 percent for high-cost new wells and a 24-month reduced rate of 1. 50 percent for all other new wells. Another reduced rate of 1. 25 percent is possible indefinitely for low-producing wells, new or old.
The Department of Finance and Administration predicts that the revenue will increase to $ 100 million by 2013 as the reduced rates gradually increase to the full rate.
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