This is a summary of a few items in the Idaho Weekly Briefing for May 22. Interested in subscribing? Send us a note at stapilus@ridenbaugh.com.
May 2017 Idaho General Fund receipts were $210.2 million, which was a 12.2% increase from the previous May. This month’s collections topped the forecasted $195.1 million by $15.2 million (7.8%). The stronger-than-expected showing raised the fiscal year-to-date receipts to $3,087.3 million, which is $64.7 million (2.1%) above the projected $3,022.6 million and 8.1% higher than in May 2016.
Representative Mike Simpson and Oregon Congressman Kurt Schrader reintroduced the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act, legislation which would fix the current budgeting process for wildfires.
Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, late yesterday, signed a Secretarial Order 3353 to improve sage-grouse conservation and strengthen communication and collaboration between state and federal governments. Together, the Federal government and states will work to conserve and protect sage-grouse and its habitat while also ensuring conservation efforts do not impede local economic opportunities.
Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter hailed a federal magistrate’s recent decision denying a motion from Friends of the Clearwater to block the U.S. Forest Service’s proposed Orogrande Community Protection Project on the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest.
State regulators have approved a settlement calling for the early retirement of a coal plant co-owned by Idaho Power.
PHOTO Kyler Brabec, who recently graduated from wildland fire school, survey’s his first fire. (photo/Bureau of Land Management)
