{"id":15882,"date":"2017-01-23T18:19:39","date_gmt":"2017-01-24T01:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=15882"},"modified":"2017-01-23T18:21:33","modified_gmt":"2017-01-24T01:21:33","slug":"legislative-update-monday-jan-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/01\/legislative-update-monday-jan-23\/","title":{"rendered":"Legislative Update: Monday, Jan. 23"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Loss\"<\/a>

Freddy Monares\/UM Community News Service<\/p>

George Edwards, director of the Montana Livestock Loss Board, shows a wolf skull in his Helena office Monday. The wolf was identified as a livestock predator. HB 286 would add mountain lions to the list of predators the board covers for reimbursement in cases of loss.<\/p><\/div>\n

Reimbursement for mountain lion kills considered<\/h4>\n

By Freddy Monares<\/h6>\n

Lawmakers in Helena are considering a bill that would allow producers to be reimbursed for livestock killed by mountain lions.<\/p>\n

The Livestock Loss Board currently reimburses producers if they lose stock to grizzly bears and wolves. House Bill 286<\/a> would add mountain lions to that list of predators.<\/p>\n

George Edwards, executive director for the board, said that in the past the agency has had a $200,000 budget to pay out for those losses. He said that number will have to increase to make room for losses by mountain lions.<\/p>\n

\u201cApproximately, there\u2019s a minimum of $61,000 in mountain lion losses. There\u2019s no wiggle room to cover that loss,\u201d Edwards said.<\/p>\n

That number includes calves, horses, goats, adult sheep and lambs reported as losses resulting from mountain lion predation in 2016.<\/p>\n

Edwards said passage of the bill depends on Senate Bill 73<\/a>, which would extend funding for the board from 2017 to 2023.<\/p>\n

Freddy Monares is a reporter with the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Broadcasters Association and the Greater Montana Foundation.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Assaults on health-care workers target in bill<\/h4>\n
By Grant Cole<\/h6>\n

House Bill 268<\/a> would make it a felony to purposely or knowingly assault a health care provider or emergency responder in Montana.<\/p>\n

The penalty would be up to 10\u00a0years in prison, up to a $50,000 fine, or both.<\/p>\n

Proponents of the bill, many of whom were nurses, shared personal stories in the House Judiciary Committee Monday of being attacked on the job.<\/p>\n

Peggy Verploegen, an ER nurse from Havre who testified, \u00a0said her perspective on caring for patients changed\u00a0after she was attacked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can care for them,” she said, “but I don\u2019t care about them nearly as much as I did before, and that\u2019s sad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opponents say protections are already in place. S.K. Rossi with the Montana ACLU said there are better ways to deal with these issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best thing for deterring crime is interventions on the front end,” Rossi said. “Mental health care, jail diversion programs, things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee did not take immediate action on the bill.<\/p>\n

Cole Grant is a reporter with the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Broadcasters Association and the Greater Montana Foundation.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reimbursement for mountain lion kills considered By Freddy Monares Lawmakers in Helena are considering a bill that would allow producers to be reimbursed for livestock killed by mountain lions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":15883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[5424,1122],"class_list":["post-15882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-livestock-loss-board","tag-montana-legislature","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}