The audio of the second half of Thursday's meeting of the Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resources Policy and Finance Committee's hearing on HF1394 (Fabian), a bill to gut the power of Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Citizens' Board, hasn't been posted as we write this.
We'll depend on the YouTube of this morning's part of the hearing, and Jonathan Mohr's Session Daily article, Controversial bill to reorganize PCA Citizens’ Board takes first step, for our post.
If you listen to those supporting the bill, the delay of a single large farm by the board has brought Minnesota's dairy industry to its knees, a Cowpocalypse Now.
Talk about downer cattle.
But the melodrama of their position becomes apparently the more one learns. Mohr reports:
When a large dairy farm sought to expand its operations in western Minnesota last year, the Pollution Control Agency’s Citizens’ Board voted against the recommendations of PCA staff and required an in-depth Environmental Impact Statement of the project before it could move forward.
For Kathy DeBuhr, a farmer who lives near Chokio and a mile from the proposed feedlot, that decision meant a reprieve from the truck traffic, dust and other negative environmental impacts she says she’s experienced from a similar operation 6 miles away. For others, however, the ruling demonstrates the uncommon power this nine-member board has to delay or derail projects on the verge of approval after months, sometimes years, of work.
The House Environment and Natural Resources Policy and Finance Committee heard testimony Thursday on a bill that would strip away much of that power. . . .
However, Rep. Frank Hornstein (DFL-Mpls) said he found that unease puzzling because “if there’s one thing that’s certain based on the record of the Citizens’ Board and the PCA, it’s that (businesses) are going to get their permit.”
Hornstein said he had counted two times in the past eight years when the board may have denied a permit.
“This is a solution in search of a problem,” he said. “We don’t have permits being denied on a regular basis. We don’t have environmental review being ordered on a regular basis. … I’m puzzled by the need for this.”
DeBuhr said the Citizens’ Board was the only place she felt as though her concerns were heard and represented.
“I urge you not to remove the power from the Citizens’ Board,” DeBuhr said. “They are looking out for me.”
Thom Petersen, Minnesota Farmers Union director of government relations, said his organization was opposed to the bill because much of the concern was due to only one situation.
“We do not feel the system is broken,” Petersen said. . . .
One of the things we found fascinating was the author's reliance on Tony Kwilas, a lobbyist from the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and a former MPCA commissioner , who is now a lawyer for Larkin and Hoffman, to walk the committee through the bill.
From the way that the video (embedded at the bottom of the post) starts, one might think that Peder Larson, who Mohr reports was MPCA commissioner back in the 1990s (Linked In says 1996-1998, during the Carlson years) was representing the agency, just one might think that the Dayton Administration supports the bill when Chair McNamara reads an executive order calling for review of the Citizens Board from 2012.
That's why Bluestem thinks it's a good thing to first post the testimony of the MPCA deputy commissioner who testified on behalf of the executive branch. (Peder Larson is also a lobbyist for mining companies and others, but was so not there for his clients. He was playing an MPCA commissioner on TV instead)
While Fabian and McNamara don't share our scruples, we think its important that the public understand that a lobbyist for the state chamber of commerce and a guy who was commissioner 17 years ago don't speak for "we," regardless of how many times the boys shared the pronoun "we."
Here's the testimony of MPCA Deputy Commissioner Michelle Beeman:
Watch that first, then contrast the manner in which the supporters of the bill chum it up with the very ex-commissioner.
To learn more about the campaign contributions from the special interests pushing this change, check out our earlier post, With friends like this, who needs lobbyists' cash? House environment committee to hear MPCA bill.
Here's the full video of the morning part of the hearing. We'll post the audio of the late afternoon part of the hearing as it becomes available and we're able to process it.
Photo: The fourth calf of the Cowpocalypse. To
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