H.B. 229 Restricted Account Modifications: transcript

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, um, I hope that the committee finds that this is a relatively easy conversation to have. So, um, to be clear, um, because you know, this, this seems like an arcane confusing bill, but I just wanna start off by saying this Bill actually came at the recommendation of staff, um, because of past work that was done on the tobacco restricted account. Um, last year, Senator Vickers ran legislation on behalf of, um, one of the working committees that he and I sit on with regard to, um, regulations that, um, legislative regulation of, um, youth e-cigarette, tobacco, marijuana use. Um, so there is tax funding that goes into this restricted account from sales tax on things like e-cigarettes, um, that is that the, that our departments use for things like mitigation, um, prevention, et cetera. Um, the way this code was set up was that, um, when, I'm sorry, let me back up. When we ran legislation last year, we had to, um, accommodate, oh, let me lemme back up by saying we'll need to move second sub. So thank you. The, the one on the system is first, but we need to move second. Um, no, I'm sorry. We skipped first. Wow. I'm a mess. Okay. The first bill is on the system. Second sub is the one that I'm speaking to. Um, when certain changes were made with regard to e-cigarettes, not the least of which was the, um, when we removed flavored vapes, the sale of vape products went down and therefore tax revenue went down. And so we had in the code dollar amounts of tax revenue that Uintah certain programs, but it's really problematic to have dollar amounts codified, especially when the income that you are getting to fund said programs falls short of said dollar amounts. And so the biggest part, one of the biggest parts, um, of this is to basically take those dollar amounts out, still maintain the waterfall, the priorities that we're gonna fund certain things until the money runs out. But it sets a, it defines the process for doing that, but allows the, um, the appropriations process to determine what those dollar amount, uh, dollar amounts are based on the whatever tax revenue comes in. And so this is just a structural fix to address that. And with that, I'm open to questions.

I need to move second sub, just as a reminder. Okay. Representative Eliason, I make a motion that we adopt, uh, first, or excuse me, second sub to HB 2 29.

Sponsor. I had Appreciate that motion. Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Chair. I move that we favorably recommend HB 2 29 restricted account modification. Second sub. Okay. Second sub. The second sub. Yes.

You know, I, I appreciate the work that's being done here right now in our state. This is adjacent to another, um, another industry that needs more funding. And I, I really love that we have these money that's dedicated to proper regulations and diversion that's happening in this market. So I think this is a good deal.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Um, so this bill actually comes at the request of staff because of a drafting error last year in legislation that manages the state's tobacco settlement restricted account and the electronic cigarette substance and nicotine product proceeds restricted account. So these are restricted funds that are funded by various tobacco and e-cigarette taxes. And we had a, we made some decisions last year to make sure that when the funds come into that fund that we had clarity on how they would be spent out. And recognizing as the, recognizing that cigarette and e-cigarette excise taxes de change depending on demand and hopefully decreased demand for dangerous products that the, the revenue would was likely to go down. And we wanted to make sure that we were not inappropriately allocating money to programs that wasn't there because of fluctuations in the amount of money coming in. So this just fixes that statutory issue and it also takes out dollar amounts. Originally, the statute had specific dollar amounts that would be allocated to specific purposes, um, but did not, rec did not account for the fact that revenue might be below those dollar amounts. And so it takes out the dollar amounts, which actually I don't believe should be in code. Still makes sure that all of that tax revenue from those funds go to the restricted accounts, but allows the, um, allocation of those accounts to be determined in the appropriations process based on the amount of revenue coming in without Mr. Speaker. I'm open to questions.