Agricultural News
Video Added- OFB's John Collison Says Legislative Session, Right to Farm Bill 'Bogged Down'
Sat, 10 May 2014 18:18:57 CDT
Oklahoma's legislative session is winding down with about two weeks to go before adjournment. John Collison, vice president of public policy and corporate communications with the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, said except for the budget process, the session is pretty well over right now. He recently spoke with Radio Oklahoma Network's Ron Hays and appeared on Saturday morning's "In the Field" segment on News 9- you can watch John and Ron by clicking on the PLAY button in the video box below.
"If you watch this process, everything's kind of bogged down right now," Collison said. Everything that we've been working on all session, everything that the Speaker's been working on, that the pro-tem's been working on, the governor's been working on is all kind of bogged down."
Collison said that he doesn't really expect much more to come out of this session other than a budget. He said a monkey wrench got thrown into the works when Speaker T.W. Shannon stepped down to run for the U.S. Senate and Jeff Hickman was left to pick up the pieces.
"He's done a great job, but he wasn't prepared. He didn't get the opportunity to get ready."
Hickman has been re-elected to the speaker's position and, Collison says, he expects far more will get done in the next legislative session.
"So, it's time to get a budget passed, put an end to this session, go campaign, come back next year."
He said there will be 41 new members next year that will need to be educated about the importance of rural and agricultural issues. He said he thinks neither the Right to Farm bill nor the checkoff bill supported by the Oklahoma Cattlement's Association will make it to the floor this session, but that both bills stand a good chance of passage next year.
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