AUGUSTA — A bill that would have allowed landowners to get some compensation for adverse effects of state regulations was voted down in the Senate on Tuesday.
The measure, L.D. 1810, passed in the House last month, but was postponed indefinitely in the Senate when lawmakers came back from a recess Tuesday to complete their work for the year. The bill is now back in the House.
The version of the bill that passed in the House would allow landowners to sue the state if 50 percent or more of the value of their property were lost because of state regulations.
The landowners would have to go to mediation first. If mediation failed, they could win as much as $400,000 in court or be granted waivers from the regulations.
David Hastings, R-Fryeburg, Senate chairman of the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee, said on the Senate floor that many agree that there’s a problem, but they couldn’t agree on how to fix it.
“The efforts and fixes proposed don’t do it,” he said.
Lawmakers had hoped to find a compromise during their recess, but Hastings quickly moved to kill the bill when the Senate reconvened on Tuesday.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
