Senate schedules hearing on RMAP legislation
1/3/03
Olympia, WA - State Sen. Bob Morton, chairman of the Senate Natural
Resources Committee, has scheduled a hearing on proposed legislation
to change the state's Road Maintenance and Abandonment Plan regulations
for Wednesday, Feb. 5. The hearing will be in the Cherberg Building,
at the Capitol complex in Olympia, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
The hearing coincides with Washington Farm Bureau's annual Legislative
Days, when more than a hundred Farm Bureau members will be in Olympia
to get updates on agricultural issues and meet with their state legislators.
With the Legislature scheduled to get underway Jan. 13, there still
have not been any RMAP bills introduced in either the House or Senate.
But Hertha Lund, assistant director of government relations for the
Washington Farm Bureau, said legislation being prepared at the request
ofthe state Department of Natural Resources appears to fall short
of meeting Farm Bureau's goals.
In September, the Washington Farm Bureau RMAP Advisory Committee issued
the following recommendations:
1. That a "small forest landowner" be defined as someone
who harvests less than two million board feet per year, based on a
three-year average.
2. There should be no RMAP requirements for a small forest landowner.
"Farm Bureau has never backed off of its position that these
rules had to be changed to eliminate the unfair and discriminatory
financial and regulatory burdens placed upon private property owners
by RMAP," Lund said. "We asked that there be no increase
in burden upon small forest landowners, yet the current bill would
still have a serious negative impact on those who can least afford
the regulations."
Lund said Farm Bureau would continue to work with key legislators
to amend any RMAP legislation to ensure that small forest landowners
can continue to farm and live on their land.
For a draft copy of the legislation being prepared for the DNR, send
e-mail request to Scott Dilley, policy assistant at the Washington
Farm Bureau, at sdilley@wsfb.com <mailto:sdilley@wsfb.com>.
To register for Legislative Days, contact Gary Joiner, director of
member relations, at gjoiner@wsfb.com <mailto:gjoiner@wsfb.com>
.