In Committee
Minnesotans know we must come together to take bold action against climate change and toward a clean energy future with healthy communities and a healthy climate. Unfortunately, both the Environment and the Energy Senate Committees missed opportunities to create jobs, innovate, and make Minnesota a national leader.
I offered several amendments in committees to insert the definition of environmental justice areas of concern and to eliminate the change to the nuclear moratorium, but they were voted down by the Republican majority.
Energy and Utilities:
SF 2075, the Energy Omnibus Bill, contains funding for the Department of Commerce and the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) as well as funding for several projects from the Renewable Development Account (RDA), but it does not contain any of the funding requests from Governor Walz for the state agencies and does very little to help advance the state towards a clean energy future.
The bill also drains the account to pay for relief for businesses that were impacted when Xcel Energy was allowed to end contracts held with several biomass plants in the state, and it gives a handout to a business seeking to establish facilities to produce wood pellets for biomass energy – both of which are expenses that are considered questionable uses of RDA funds at best.
Controversial Policy Provisions:
- Lifting Minnesota’s decades-old moratorium on new nuclear power, which the Republicans claim is the only path forward to having conversation around the potential merits of nuclear energy. DFLers have consistently pointed out that the prohibition on new nuclear facilities does not, however, prohibit the Legislature from discussing nuclear energy, and no stakeholders are currently asking for the moratorium to be lifted as there is not yet a method available to store nuclear waste in a way that protects human health and the environment.
- Weakening a telecommunication provider’s obligation to serve customers in their service areas, which could disproportionately leave seniors and/or rural Minnesotans with unreliable access to telephone service.
The original bill will be rolled into a larger Commerce and Energy Bill before it arrives on the Senate floor for a vote from the full body. I have been vocal against the controversial provisions of the bill and raised the issue that the spending does very little in terms of funding projects that will bring us closer to achieving a carbon-free energy future. I will continue to raise these points and work towards a better bill before it is signed into law.
Environment and Natural Resources:
While SF 959, Sen. Ingebrigtsen’s Omnibus Environment and Natural Resources Bill, included $61.387 million from the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund (ENRTF) for projects that were left on the table after the Legislature failed to pass the 2020 environment omnibus bill it did not include the following agency’s requests:
MPCA:
- PFAS priorities (sampling fish for PFAS, inventorying the potential sources of PFAS, evaluating PFAS at wastewater and solid waste facilities) ($25 million total)
- New equipment for environmental justice areas (for compliance and enforcement) ($948 thousand total)
- Water program operating increase ($3.076 million)
- Statutory appropriation from Closed Landfill Investment Fund ($5.6 million)
- Landfill responsibility Act ($1.840 million)
- Climate adaptation & resiliency program ($2.964)
DNR:
- Appropriation to help the agency in recouping legal costs ($4 million)
- Addressing aquatic invasive species in Red Lake Nation ($3 million)
- Tree planting for carbon sequestration ($2.6 million)
BWSR:
- Climate mitigation & soil health funding ($5.5 million)
- Statewide water storage and treatment funding ($3 million)
- Decreases appropriations for wetland conservation act enforcement and county weed management cost-share grants
Minnesota Zoo:
- Does not include Governor’s request of $9.9 million for re-starting operations.
Controversial Policy Provisions:
- SF 450 (Mathews): Pollution control agency motor vehicle emissions standards authority repeal
Opponents of the provision include a broad coalition of clean energy and environment advocates and groups who support the implementation of Clean Cars MN.
- SF 622 (Howe): Well interference and water appropriation conditions modifications
Concerns with the provisions include restricting the opportunity for the agency to address new problems with water use, and it would hinder their ability to take into account variability in well types, geology, level of use, maintenance, etc.
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