Oklahoma
State Senate
Senator
Micheal Bergstrom
Senate
District 1
May 8, 2019
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Senator Micheal Bergstrom
State Capitol: (405) 521-5561
Capitol
Considerations by Senator Micheal Bergstrom
Legislature Winding
Down, Budget Getting Close
We are now in the last few
weeks of this year’s Oklahoma Legislative session.
The final bills of
the session are being negotiated in conference committees and voted upon.
Fortunately for me, I don’t
have any bills in conference. A dozen of my bills have all been sent to the
Governor’s desk and he has signed them all. I have two House bills that I am
the Senate author on that I expect to see heading to the Governor’s desk soon.
All in all, it has been a productive year for myself and the
Senate.
We still have an optometry
bill (SB 100) and a pharmacy bill (HB 2632) that need to be voted on. We still
haven’t voted on the GRDA bill (SB 985). And of course we have more marijuana
legislation that needs to come to the floor.
We did pass SB 608 on Monday,
which requires the manufacturers of the top 25 alcohol brands to offer their
product to every wholesaler in the state. Some wholesalers and retailers felt
they were being seriously harmed since the two largest wholesalers held a
duopoly on these brands.
Regarding the budget. My understanding
is that we are very close on the budget; close enough that we may get out of
session a week early. We’ll see.
The Governor signed over half my bills in the past week, so here is
an update.
SB 61, SB 374 and SB 375
are all transportation bills that bring Oklahoma into compliance with the
federal FAST Act which was passed in 2015. States were to be in compliance
within three years or risk losing federal highway funds. It’s been four years.
All were approved by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) and the
Department of Public Safety (DPS).
SB 244 stops the
Oklahoma Department of Corrections (ODOC) from refusing to pay for individuals
housed in county jails more than five days after their felony convictions.
ODOC’s actions were unconstitutional and needed to be curtailed.
SB
113 and SB 115 allow vessels like the Cherokee Queen in Grove to sell alcohol,
and allow golf courses and marinas to charge alcohol purchases by members to
their accounts as was the case before the new alcohol laws went into effect in
October.
SB 243 deals with
public/private partnerships, and simply makes it easier for the Oklahoma
Department of Commerce to be more involved in these partnerships.
SB 485 modifies the Small
Business Incubators Incentives Act to allow the tax credit to be used by the
tenants (the fledgling businesses) in incubators, but not the incubators, which
are generally non-profits or technology centers with no tax liability. It also
gets rid of another tax credit that hasn’t been used in 12 years.
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