After two days of hearings, the Senate Resources Committee has held HB 495, the bill to restrict the state Land Board's business investments for the state endowment, in committee for lack of any motion to either pass or kill the measure. The bill was proposed in the wake of the endowment's controversial acquisition of a self-storage business.

Former GOP state Sen. Rachel Gilbert told the committee, "We've been at this bill now for a year and a half. It has gone through an interim study, this bill has been discussed, it has been cussed. ... Please don't hold it in committee. Maybe you won't like it, but send it to the floor and let's have a hearing. ... After what this bill has been through, I'm not asking you to do that, I'm begging you to do that, because it's going to be coming back year after year."

The state Land Board voted 3-1 to oppose the bill as unconstitutional; the state constitution requires the Land Board to manage state endowment lands for the maximum long-term returns to the endowment's beneficiaries, the largest of which is the state's public schools.

University of Idaho officials raised concerns that the bill as written could forbid them from operating their research dairy, though Rep. John Vander Woude, R-Nampa, told the senators, "I believe that argument is bogus." He said, "I do not want the permanent endowment fund or the endowment fund to get rid of their land. ... I don't want the state to be selling off all this land. That to me is what qualifies as long-term investments and long-term return, is if you keep it into land." He said, "I think this bill really is philosophical, what's the proper role of government and what's the proper role of the Legislature. ...  I think it's the proper role of government to stay out of the private sector competing with businesses."

Vander Woude co-sponsored the bill with Rep. Grant Burgoyne, D-Boise, an attorney who told the committee he thought the bill was constitutional.