The North Dakota House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted AGAINST moderate reforms to reign WAWS in that even the Senate supported.
By a vote of 78 against and 12 in favor, the House defeated Senate Bill 2336 that simply would have allowed PRIVATE businesses who compete with the government (WAWS) to know when the government (WAWS) intends to going into a contractual agreement with a private oil company, and give PRIVATE companies a week to file comments with the State Water Commission. The goal of this was to allow PRIVATE companies, which create jobs and pay taxes the courtesy of knowing when and where the government (WAWS) intends to compete with them.
In the end, this was a vote AGAINST TRANSPARENCY. The bill did not do anything except create a process by which the government would communicate with private business, and give private business a chance to reply with how the government's actions might impact them - or give the private business the chance to determine and state whether the private business was better suited than the government (WAWS).
Also, the House killed Senate Bill 2361 (by a vote of 76 against and 14 in favor) which would have restricted WAWS from using Eminent Domain to build water pipelines solely for the use of the oil industry.
The House will have one more chance to create some fair play when it takes up Senate Bill 2020, which includes the budget for WAWS.
