Bluestem first looked at legislation that would potentially place decision making for millions of public funds to private hands at the end of our April 5 post Story telling is the new public relations; or, MN converted more acres to cropland than any other.
Now that bill has been folded into an omnibus bill, and it's potentially introducing a form of private industry pork that's unique for the way Minnesota state government conducts itself.
In Friday's first hearing on the Minnesota House Omnibus Ag Finance Bill, Representative Rick Hansen (DFL- South St. Paul) and Ag Finance Committee Chair Rod Hamilton (R-Mountain Lake) conducted this civil exchange:
Hansen: . . . I apologize if you went over this before. I was in another meeting, but I wanted to go back to Section 30, the Transfer Board and this is the question I usually ask in other committees on the authority.
It looks like we're setting up this board with the usual stakeholders, or special interest groups, and its a wide range of special interest groups again, but are they making --holding a request for proposals and then presenting it to the legislature to make the appropriation or is the board itself have the authority to spend the money?
Hamilton: . . .The board themselves will be making those recommendations, and it is in conjunction with the --let me get my glasses on here--in conjunction with the commissioner [of agriculture] and the dean representing state colleges and universities.
Hansen: . . .Representative Hamilton, you and I have talked about this. Do we have any other precedence when we look elsewhere in state law, where we have the Outdoor Heritage Council does RFDs, then makes the recommendations for appropriations so we're [the legislature] are making the appropriation.
We have other councils . . .we have other boards and commissions that are based on population and the best available citizens in the state serve, so why have the interests have both the authority and the opportunity to be receiving the dollars? Why not have it--them make recommendations to the legislature and then we make the appropriations?
Hamilton: Madam Chairman and Mr. [Committee Research Analyst Colbey] Sullivan, we do have some other entities similar to this. There's a precedence the way I understand it. Is that correct?
Sullivan: The Ag Fertilizer Research and Education Council that is modified in this bill operates in a similar manner where the council reviews proposals and then determines which projects receive grants and then those. . .the actual money is awarded by the [state] Department of Ag.
Hansen: . . .That is using fees that they generate versus general dollars. . . .Is this correct that this will be general fund dollars that is going into the Transfer Board that all taxpayers in the state would be paying?
Sullivan: That's correct. These are general fund dollars.
So there we have: Minnesota's first hand-off general fund dollars to special interests, who will both take requests for proposals, be eligible to apply for funds, and make the decision to award them.
Here's the video:
While Hamilton mentions the Minnesota Commissioner of Agriculture and a dean of colleges and universities, neither the Commissioner, the University of Minnesota's ag school dean or the representative of MnSCU will be voting members of the Transfer Board.
As it's set up, it's pure pork.
Bluestem believes that more money for agricultural research and education would be a good thing; later in the hearing, the representatives discuss the need for the ability to respond to crisis situations like that the state's turkey industry is experiencing with the outbreaks of a particular nasty strain of the avian flu.
Unfortunately, we have yet to hear a convincing reason why the authority to spend general fund money to be handed out to special interest groups without legislation approval. This sort of general-fund subvention of pork isn't handed out to the Nature Conservancy or Pheasants Forever with the Lessard Sams Council or any other special interests.
Nature is great. Hunting is great. Agriculture is great. None is special enough an interest, however, to hand public dollars over without legislative approval. Hansen may be a noodge about this sort of regulatory capture, but the Minnesota House of Representatives would do well to have 133 other noodges among its ranks when it comes to this sort of transfer of public money and authority into private hands.
As one might expect, the proposal totally enjoys broad support from farm and commodity groups, with the exception of the Land Stewardship Project.
Image: The Transfer Board isn't quite as secret as the Simpson's Stonecutters, but it would certain be as private.
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