2-28 House Committee amended to appropriations

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2-28 House Committee amended to appropriations Page 19 of 22 the second phase, and I know that puts this bill pretty far out there to wait. So if the Committee's comfortable, you know, we could look for a report back to the General Assembly in March of '06, but you can think about that. Did you have your hand up Representative Rhodes? Go ahead. Rep. Rhodes: Yes, thank you Madame Chair. I think with the changes I've seen here today this bill goes a long ways in satisfying some of the discomfort I had with satisfying the existing water right owners and ensuring that they are not harmed in any way, shape or form. I think this is a tremendous step forward, and I feel much better about this bill having seen these amendments. There are a couple of conceptuals that I will offer shortly, but they are very, very minor compared to the overall direction of this, and I'm very pleased with what I see. I think we need to move forward with this in its present form. Madame Chair: Okay. I sort of cut you off there Representative Penry, but I think you're winding down. We were on Page 11. Rep. PelllY I think that that actually deals with all of the amendments. But remember, the impOliant thing to remember is that while the statewide committee is developing its charter, this process does need to go forward because there is a lot of legwork that the local roundtables are going to have to go through even before negotiations can start. So whether the bill, you know, if you go back to the old, the original bill, you would've had a situation where the Interbasin Compact Committee would've been on the sidelines for a pretty long, a year or so anyway, while the local roundtables got their house in order. So I think this is a sensible step, and it lets, it invests in the Interbasin Compact Committee the ability to write the mles for themselves, and so they'll be familiar with those mles and procedures, which hopefi.Jlly will help the negotiations move forward more smoothly once those commence. Madame Chair: You know Representative Penry, we have a fiscal note in front of us that's pretty healthy. Do you feel that these amendments to the bill would reduce that? Rep. PelllY I don't know that I could speak to that. I think we should as for - ask the, our fiscal analyst to engage the Department and see if www.escriptionist.com Page 19 of 22