See below for the update on the buffers initiative.
Bobby King of the Land Stewardship Project sends us this alert:
The legislature decided that instead of weakening the MPCA Citizens’ Board they would outright ELIMINATE it. This outrageous idea, which was not introduced as a bill or heard previously in any committee, was unveiled late Saturday night and adopted in conference committee. Forty seven years old, the Citizens’ Board was established in 1967 with the creation of the MPCA to ensure the agency serves the public interest and to establish an open and transparent decision making process. It has worked will and is a model the state should be proud of.
This language is included in the Agriculture and Environment Budget Bill along with many other bad provisions, including a sham buffer program that puts off addressing the issue of dealing with agricultural runoff. Read more in this letter from the Minnesota Environmental Partnership to legislators.
There is negotiating going on now to potentially take some of the bad provisions out of the bill. We need calls to the Governor’s office now to keep this on his radar.
Call Gov. Dayton at 651-201-3400 or 800-657-3717 and say “The Ag and Env Budget bills ELIMINATES the MPCA Citizens’ Board. This is a terrible idea. The Citizens’ Board has been around for over 40 years and creates an open and transparent decision making process that helps guard against undue corporate influence. This entirely new proposal was adopted late at night and is outrageous. Governor veto this if it is sent to you.”
Also, leave him a message on Facebook. [Click here to visit his official Facebook page]
UPDATE! The Land Stewardship Project's Bobby King has tweeted an update to the letter below!
New buffer language now in Ag & Env bill.. #mnleg must fix the rest of this list: http://t.co/8UXiNqL3OF or @GovMarkDayton veto.
— Bobby King (@bobby_king_mn) May 18, 2015Via Minnesota Public Radio, the Associated Press reports the outline of the deal in New buffer strip plan speeds implementation, carries fines.
Here's the final letter that the Minnesota Environmental Partnership and partners sent to legislators objecting to many provisions in the conference committee report. From eliminating the Citizens Board to providing funding to promote false pollinator labeling, this is a bad bill.
Here's the letter (consider contacting your state representative and state senator to ask them to send this bad bill back to the conference committee; find their contact info and some good tips about effective communication here).
For a brief overview, there's Session Daily stafferJonathan Mohr's Conferees agree on ag, environment and natural resources committee report.
The letter above follows an earlier appeal that we posted about in last week in the post Environmental Partnership doesn't much like this year's giant ag & environment omnibus bill.
Photo: Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resources Finance and Policy Committee Chair Denny McNamara (R-Hastings) and Minnesota Senate Finance - Environment, Economic Development and Agriculture Budget Division Committee Chair David Tomassoni (DFL-Chisholm) confer over the smorgasbord of special interest goodies. Photo by Paul Battaglia via Session Daily.
Bluestem readers may remember some of our earlier posts on these charming chaps.
McNamara
April 26: Of the loners at the Center for Responsive Politics & McNamara's campaign finance fables.
March 12: With friends like this, who needs lobbyists' cash? House environment committee to hear MPCA bill
February 8: Hot potato politics: Offutt family members gave Representative Denny McNamara campaign cash.
Tomassoni
January 12: Range trust: state senator scores job creating content for 2016 outside group IE attack mail
January 19: Coleman totally jumps on Sen. Tomassoni's case -- and we're not happy about dual offices either
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