Legislative Update from Rep. Frank Iler – May 16, 2016

Last week in the North Carolina House of Representatives we passed two bills out of the House Transportation Committee dealing with ferries and with light rail projects, we honored our veterans with a resolution on the House floor, and we completed the individual sections of the House budget.

Last Tuesday the House Transportation Committee took up a bill dealing with ferry tolls and ferry replacement and refurbishing.  House Bill 1002 – Ferry System Stabilization Act repeals all ferry tolls on those routes that are tolled.  It also establishes a fund for future vessel replacement and for refurbishing existing vessels.  It passed the committee unanimously.

The committee also took up House Bill 988 – Repeal Light Rail Funding Cap.  This bill removes the unusually low cap of $500,000 on light rail projects.  The projects will still compete with other transportation project funding and will be subject to the normal caps on projects in the Strategic Transportation Investment Plan or STIP.

We had a special resolution last week to honor our veterans.  House Resolution 1124 – Honoring the State’s Veterans had many passionate speakers on the House floor, and naturally passed unanimously.

All week the co-chairmen of the various appropriations committees were meeting constantly on different sections of the 2016 – 2017 budget adjustments.  The other co-chairmen and myself of the House Appropriations Committee on Transportation met with interested parties each day as we prepared the changes to the House budget. Finally, Thursday morning, we and our other committee members heard the completed transportation section, and passed it by noon.  Other committees dealing with education, health and human services, and other budget sections were continuing to meet Thursday afternoon to complete their work.

This week the full House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to meet all day Tuesday to review the final House budget and to hear and vote on amendments.  It is hoped that it will be on the House floor by Wednesday or Thursday for a final vote.  It will then be sent to the Senate for their consideration.