HELENA – Just a day after the Legislature adjourned, Gov. Brian Schweitzer vetoed six bills Wednesday, including one shepherded through the session by the Senate Republican leader.
Lawmakers wrapped up their work Tuesday and dozens of bills are hitting Schweitzer’s desk. His Wednesday vetoes included the Republican-led plan to have a special legislative panel oversee spending of federal stimulus money.
Schweitzer said he thinks the Economic Stimulus Program Oversight Commission is a waste of money and duplicates accountability measures included in the federal act itself and the oversight of existing legislative committees.
“I believe the creation of a new commission is unnecessary and a waste of taxpayer money,” Schweitzer wrote in his veto message.
Senate President Bob Story, the Park City Republican who led support for the bill, said he is not surprised the governor killed it since Democrats opposed the idea throughout the process.
“The only surprising thing is he fired up the veto pen so fast,” Story said.
Schweitzer has said he could veto more bills, and has not ruled out line-item vetoes in the state’s main budget bill.
Schweitzer’s Wednesday vetoes included a bill that aimed to allow coal-bed methane wastewater to be more easily used in other ways, such as in ranching or in road-dust mitigation. Proponents said it is needed to help create beneficial uses for the water that is at the heart of contentious debate over CBM drilling.
The governor said in his veto message that the bill tinkers with established water rights law and uses a “sleight of hand” to circumvent groundwater protections.
Schweitzer has not said which bills he is eyeing to veto, saying only he will evaluate each one individually. He only vetoed one bill during the session, a measure that allowed juveniles to be prosecuted as adults in cases of vehicular homicide.
Five of the six vetoed bills had Republican sponsors.
Other bills vetoed Wednesday:
— House Bill 629 that promised schools a bigger stake in natural resource development on state land.
— Senate Bill 249 that would have allowed restricted driver’s licenses to certain offenders who have had a license stripped in another state.
— Senate Bill 291 that set up a new panel charged with increasing railroad competition.
— Senate Bill 349 that set up new rules for protection of proprietary information submitted in bids to state government.
Story said he is prepared for more vetoes from the governor. The top Senate Republican said he suspects Schweitzer may use line-item authority to pull money out of the budget destined for the Montana Meth Project, and other money intended to set up more community mental-health service.
“We will just have to see,” Story said.