Wednesday April 25, 2012

Here’s a quick update for bills that we’ve been following this session.

These have been signed into law and are already in effect:

H. 21, mutual benefit enterprises (formerly limited cooperative associations).

H. 565, licensed lender.

S. 179, amending perpetual conservation easements. This bill passed the Senate in a stripped down version from its introduction. Property Law Section members should pay attention to what it contains and what a study committee is being charged with doing.

The following passed the Senate on Tuesday. Given that the Senate made no changes to the House passed version, the bills will now go to the governor:

H. 272, private roads

H. 327, uniform principal and income act.

The following are still on the Senate Action Calendar:

S. 203, child support. I expect the Senate will concur in the House proposals of amendment.

H. 403, foreclosure rewrite. Again I expect the Senate will accept a minor amendment added in the House.

H. 600, foreclosure mediation. The Senate Judiciary Committee has made some changes that need to pass the Senate and then the bill must return to the House for action.

S. 116, probate proceedings and power of attorney. This bill is in a committee of conference to work out differences between the two chambers.

A couple of bills may be dead for this year. For example, S. 28, the permit reform measure that would create an “on the record” appeal for Act 250 proceedings in district environmental commissions 1, 4, and 5 may not get out of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee. Also, H, 763, the tax department collection of the education tax is bottled up in House Appropriations. The provision that would allow attorneys and others access to net tax figures has been added to H. 782, the miscellaneous tax bill. That should be out of the Senate Finance Committee today. Finally, S. 143, the building energy disclosure bill is being held in the Senate Rules Committee.

The FY 13 budget bill and the pay act are up for action in the Senate probably later today. Together those bills should end furlough days in our courts and restore pay cuts that most state employees took over three years ago. No doubt both will end up in committees of conference.

Of course this is only a snapshot in time; anything can happen in the final days of any session. If you are interested in something I didn’t mention, let me know and I’ll try to update it for you. as always, thanks for reading.