{"id":114938,"date":"2015-01-29T20:26:13","date_gmt":"2015-01-30T03:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/atv-bill-begins-long-journey\/"},"modified":"2015-01-29T20:26:13","modified_gmt":"2015-01-30T03:26:13","slug":"atv-bill-begins-long-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/atv-bill-begins-long-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"ATV bill begins long journey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Lawmakers
Lawmakers on Wednesday advanced a measure that would allow off-highway vehicles on county roads, but the bill still has a long journey ahead.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 A measure that would allow off-highway vehicles on county roads crossed its first hurdle Wednesday, but it faces a rocky road.<\/p>\n

The measure by state Rep. J. Paul Brown, R-Ignacio, would allow licensed drivers with all-terrain vehicles to travel on dirt county roads. The measure was amended to exclude paved roads at the request of the Colorado State Patrol.<\/p>\n

It also was amended to limit drivers to 16 years old and older and speeds to 35 mph.<\/p>\n

The bill passed the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on a unanimous vote.<\/p>\n

Because the measure would generate nearly $6 million in revenue from registration fees, it would increase the amount required to be refunded to taxpayers under the Taxpayer\u2019s Bill of Rights, assuming the state hits projected triggers.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers would need to find other areas of the state budget to cut in order to balance spending with the looming refunds.<\/p>\n

The next stop for Brown\u2019s measure is the House Finance Committee, where lawmakers may kill the bill simply because of the TABOR refund conundrum.<\/p>\n

\u201cExtra cash funds means we\u2019ll have to make a corresponding reduction in the General Fund because of TABOR,\u201d said Rep. Mike Foote, D-Lafayette, a member of both the State Affairs and Finance committees. \u201cWe\u2019re in a different situation because of that here, but we\u2019ll be discussing that in Finance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The constitutional conflict could result in crushing blow for the off-highway vehicle bill. The measure has seen several defeats at the Legislature.<\/p>\n

Brown was handed the torch to continue the effort this year after defeating state Rep. Mike McLachlan, D-Durango, in the November election. McLachlan had been working on the effort before Brown.<\/p>\n

The bill is careful to preserve local control. If a county wanted to prohibit ATVs on roads, then that would be the prerogative of the board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ATVs on county roads<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":114939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[94,13,259],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-114938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-transportation"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114938"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=114938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}