VIDALIA — The Louisiana legislative session began in Baton Rouge Monday, and the area’s legislators introduced a number of bills.

Because of last year’s shortfall, the state budget is taking centerstage this year, District 21 Rep. Andy Anders said.

“We’re trying to get as much legislation through as possible so we can begin working on the budget,” Anders said.

Andy Anders

Anders introduced two bills for appropriations to pay court judgments against state agencies and a bill that would change the requirements for certain permits a farmer would need when drilling a drought relief well.

The reason he filed the bill about drought wells was to reduce the amount of time it takes for farmers to be able to drill wells and save their crops from drought, Anders said.

Anders introduced legislation that will directly affect Concordia Parish if passed. The bill would amend the act that created the Concordia Economic and Industrial Development District to allow a member of the Concordia Parish Police Jury to serve on the board.

Currently, the board is composed of the mayors of the incorporated municipalities and three at-large members.

“This will help the board, and I am certainly working with (Concordia Parish Economic Director) Heather Malone with this,” Anders said.

His legislative introductions included bills that — if passed — would further define the rights of authority of the Louisiana Agriculture Finance Authority, especially regarding how it handles emergency relief in the coming year.

“We are not in the lending business in the department of agriculture,” Anders said. “This is just a one-time thing to make sure we have a crop.”

He also sponsored a bill that would require anyone practicing optometry to hold a graduate level Doctor of Optometry degree.

Likewise, he introduced a modification to the existing law granting forestry officers their authority that would require any state employees who regularly operate emergency medical or firefighting equipment to obtain a class “E” driver’s license.

District 32 Sen. Neil Riser

District 32 Sen. Neil Riser introduced 16 pieces of legislation, 10 of which dealt with tax code.

He also introduced legislation that would require all passengers age 13 or older in a vehicle weighing 10,000 or less to wear a seat belt when the vehicle is in motion, as well as legislation that would set a schedule for treatment in workman’s compensation issues.

Another bill Riser introduced would reduce the civil penalty for careless handling of hazardous waste from $25,000 to $10,000, and would limit the liability for emergency response costs in a hazardous material response by the state to $25,000 for small businesses.

He also introduced legislation that would ban caller-ID spoofing, where a caller uses a special calling card to make their outgoing calls appear to be coming from a different number on the recipient’s caller ID.

“Someone could give you a legitimate number on the caller ID and say, ‘I am Neil Riser with Concordia Bank, call me back on my office number,” Riser said earlier this month. “They are preying on people who are making an assumption that this is a legitimate call.”

The senator also introduced a bill that would become a constitutional amendment that would move the start of the session to the last Monday in January in even-numbered years and the last Monday in February in odd-numbered years.

District 34 Sen. Francis C. Thompson

District 34 Sen. Francis C. Thompson introduced legislation that would prohibit the release of feral hogs into an area where they could move into adjoining properties within the state of Louisiana.

He also introduced a bill that abolish the State Market Commission and Farm Youth Loan Program, and a legislative instrument that would increase the amount of the severance tax for temper allocated to the Forestry Productivity Fund from 75 percent to 100 percent.

Other legislation Thompson introduced included a bill that would allow for the transfer of a Madison Parish road to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as legislation that would allow the Madison Parish Sheriff’s Office to pay 100 percent of the life insurance premiums for sheriff’s office employees retiring after July 1, 2009.