By Carrie Haderlie
Wyoming Tribune Eagle
Via- Wyoming News Exchange

CHEYENNE — A bill to create an investment fund that advocates have said could offset lost mineral revenue to the state has failed in the Wyoming House of Representatives.

Senate File 197, “Wyoming generational investment account-2,” was not debated on the House floor by a Friday deadline for bills on general file, but an amendment to another bill to create the fund was debated on second reading Monday afternoon.

SF 197 would have created a perpetual trust fund with a $100 million transfer from the Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account (the state’s “rainy-day fund” — if available and based on a sliding scale dependent on funding in the LSRA — to the proposed Wyoming Generational Investment Account.

Bill sponsor Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, said the program would have been rolled out in two phases: First, it would have created the structure needed to create the fund, and then it would have rolled out a constitutional amendment so that investment earnings would be distributed 30 years after the initial contribution.

“You have to create the fund, and then go to the people and make it an inviolate trust,” Driskill said.

Driskill said that while he was “very disappointed” the bill did not hit the House floor by Friday night, he believed the idea would come back in a future session.

“It will come back, and I really believe it will come to fruition,” Driskill said.

Calculations based on historical earnings indicate the fund would be worth around $30 billion in 30 years, according to Wyoming State Treasurer Curt Meier’s office. But Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, recommended the idea become an interim topic for study by the Joint Appropriations Committee.

Meier said he believes there is support in the House for a constitutional amendment to create an inviolate trust, but an understanding of the bill and the program it would create “was not there.” After the session, he said, he plans to conduct outreach to lawmakers and Wyoming residents about a generational investment account.

“We are going to go into areas where we didn’t have a lot of support,” Meier said. “We want to tell people the benefits of this idea.”

Waiting a year or two to create the program doesn’t mean that any long-term investment like that proposed in SF 197 cannot be realized, he continued.

Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, listens during a committee meeting Jan. 16 in the Capitol in Cheyenne. Driskill was the sponsor of a bill that would have created a new “generational investment account.”

“It could still pay off, but it would just be a year or two later,” Meier said. “But if you have that steady stream of income, it opens up a whole bunch of opportunities that we don’t have today.”

Driskill said that SF 197 did include an effective date of three years out, so that leaders could agree on the framework of the program, but nonetheless, the measure did not make it past the House.

“We did that to have a chance to say, did we create the right framework? The right vehicle? And if we didn’t, let’s fix it,” he said. “In the meantime, that would give us time to get ready to run a constitutional amendment.”

Even without the creation of a new inviolate trust for the state of Wyoming this session, Driskill said he believes such a trust is crucial because when funding is short, those investment accounts are limited in use.

In discussions this session about a Wyoming generational investment account, lawmakers have brought up the state’s Permanent Mineral Trust Fund multiple times. According to the Wyoming Taxpayers Association, the PMTF was created in 1975 by a constitutional amendment that passed on the November 1974 ballot.

The history of the fund dates back to 1968, when the balance in Wyoming’s bank account had dwindled to only $80. Then-Gov. Stan Hathaway drafted a bill to institute a severance tax on minerals in the state. Legislators were reluctant to bring forward his proposal, however. The bill passed by a narrow margin, creating the first severance tax on minerals in Wyoming.

Today, 30% of the state’s general fund comes from interest on the PMTF, which has equated to a lower tax burden on residents.

“If we could have (spent) the Mineral Trust Fund, it probably would have been drawn down several times. I really feel strongly (a generational investment account) needs to be an inviolate trust,” Driskill said.

HOUSE DEBATES THE IDEA ANYWAY

Monday afternoon, the House did have a chance to discuss the idea of a generational investment fund, although in a roundabout way. Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper, brought a second-reading amendment to Senate File 70, “Investment modernization- state nonpermanent funds,” to create what he said was something similar to the fund under SF 197, but what he called an “income tax prevention account.”

Harshman also sponsored House Bill 107, “Wyoming generational investment account,” a mirror bill to SF 197. That bill was not heard in committee of the whole in the House by a Feb. 10 deadline.

“Really, this is a simple way for us to get our existing money working harder,” Harshman said about his amendment Monday.

Rep. Bob Nicholas, R-Cheyenne, said that in his eight years chairing the Appropriations Committee, he often faced discussion about impending budget shortfalls due to falling revenue from the coal, oil and gas industries. With that experience in mind, he said he would support Harshman’s amendment.

“Our fundamental responsibility is to prepare for the future, for our kids and for their kids,” Nicholas said.

But Bear said on the floor that the idea was vetted in the House Appropriations Committee, and that a second-reading amendment on a different bill was not the right way to resurrect the idea. SF 70, he said, restricts spending from the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust Fund, and the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund.

“Now, what we are talking about is actually bringing a bill in for a whole different purpose, that died earlier in this particular session,” Bear said.

Rep. Ann Lucas, R-Cheyenne, said she would oppose the amendment, because in addition to saving, the state must cut its spending.

“I’ve coached people on how to save money, and how to spend wisely,” Lucas said. “I didn’t hear anybody here say, ‘Maybe we should cut spending some places.’ I feel that no savings plan works without a controlled, reasonable spending plan.”

Harshman’s amendment failed on a 35-22 vote Monday afternoon.