Wyoming House, Senate Give Bills Final Approval Monday
As the Wyoming Legislature entered its second week of a scheduled four-week budget session on Monday, lawmakers in both houses gave final approval to a number of bills, each of which will now move to the opposite house of the legislature.
A Senate committee on Monday morning also took extensive testimony on a controversial measure that would bar trans athletes from playing women's sports in the state without yet voting on the measure
In the Wyoming House, the following bills won third and final approval:
HB 9, Economic Development programs, HB 29, Hathaway Scholarship, HB 30, School Finance, HB 43, Trophy Game, HB 45, Mine Reclamation bonding, HB 46, Partnership Challenge, HB 79, Employment Support Funding, and HB 80, Campaign reports
In the Wyoming Senate, the following bills were approved on third and final reading in that body and will now move on to the Wyoming House of Representatives:
SF 3-Radioactive materials transport fee; SF 8-Weed and pest organization; SF 25 District Judge positions authorization; SF 27, Dissolution of county boards; SF 29 Liability for governmental healthcare providers, amendment; SF 31, Absenteeism and truancy, SF 32, K-3 reading assessment and intervention program; SF 33, Codification of the education resource block grant model, SF 35, Electric vehicle charging stations, regulation exemption. SF 38, Monthly ad valorem tax revisions, SF 46, Solid Waste cease and transfer program funding, and SF 98, Federal emergency COVID-19 relief funding limitations.
The Senate Education Committee also heard extensive testimony from both supporters and opponents of a bill that would ban trans athletes from playing women's sports in Wyoming.
But the committee didn't vote on Senate File 51, the Fairness in Women's Sports Act.
As the hearing ran out of time, Chair Senator Charles Scott [R-Natrona County] said he wasn't sure that when the committee takes up the issue again it will continue to take testimony. "We'll see what we can arrange, but I'm not going to tolerate a filibuster on the bill, " Scott said.
Sen. Chris Rothfuss [D-Albany County] said he didn't think the lengthy testimony was a fillibuster so much as a matter of passion on the proposal, "but OK" he added.