At Friday's joint Minnesota House Ways & Means and Senate Finance committee informational meeting, Rep. Jean Wagenius raised serious questions about just what taxpayers will be getting in exchange for payments to biofuel projects.
Improved water quality certainly isn't part of the new bill, the Minneapolis Democrat noted, and that promise was the carrot that had earned broad support for the measure. But by the time the first ag and environmental omnibus bill reached the Governor's desk, a compromise agreement was gone.
It's still gone. What's the fuss?
How the Great Plain institute touted a compromise
Perhaps the best place to get a positive evaluation of the compromise is the Great Plains Institute, a Minneapolis-based non-profit that works on renewable energy and climate change issues. The GPI is a major player in trying to develop a new "bioeconomy" in Minnesota, and the biofuels language was part of this initiative.
In the May 3, 2015 GPI blog post, Bioeconomy Bill Prospects as MN Legislature Nears the Finish Line for 2015 Session, Amanda Bilek reported:
At the beginning of April we announced that the Coalition had reached an agreement with members of the Minnesota Environmental Partnership who had previously been opposed to the bill over possible water quality impacts from the use of crop residues for cellulosic biofuels. Once the agreement was in place, the language of the Bioeconomy bill was amended to reflect the principles of the agreement. The Star Tribune published an editorial praising the compromise as a way to move forward policy that can deliver economic development and natural resource enhancement.
With the opposition to the bill eliminated and broad support from biobased industry, agriculture, and environmental interests the bill moved from the policy committees to consideration by the finance committees in the House and Senate for possible inclusion in budget bills.
In mid-April, Representative Rod Hamilton – Chair of the Agriculture Finance Committee and chief author of the Bioeconomy bill – included the Bioeconomy bill in the overall Agriculture Policy and Finance bill (HF 1437). As HF 1437 has worked its way through the process there have been a few changes to the Bioeconomy bill, but when HF 1437 is brought the floor, the production incentive program will have a $1.883 million appropriation for the next two years and the underlying policy language for the program remains largely intact.
In the Minnesota Senate, the Bioeconomy bill has been included in Senator David Tomassoni’s – finance division chair for Environment, Economic Development, and Agriculture – omnibus Agriculture, Environment, and Natural Resources appropriation bill, SF 1764. The production incentive program has a $5 million appropriation in the budget bill. Also in the Senate bill is policy language for a working lands perennial feedstock program to establish the biomass supply necessary for a cellulosic biofuel facility that would turn perennial grasses and crop residues into a liquid fuel. In order to determine the best path for program implementation the Board of Soil and Water Resources is allocated $750,000 to develop a detailed plan for program delivery.
This compromise didn't hold, with Rep. Denny McNamara insisting on the floor of the House that he'd never signed in to this deal as chair of the Minnesota House Environment Committee.
Earlier water quality concerns
The compromise emerged in order to secure the votes to pass the incentives. Session Daily's Jonathan Mohr reported about those concerns in a mid-February post, Incentives pondered to help Minnesota tap billion dollar biofuels market:
Although there seemed to be wide support among committee members for increased production of bio-based fuels, chemicals and energy — as well as the incentive program and the goals of the bill — questions were raised about which feedstocks should be used to make those products .
Hamilton and supporters such as the Minnesota Farm Bureau and Minnesota Corn Growers Association favor the use of corn, with some incentives for perennial crops. But two committee members voiced concerns about the impact using corn would have on water quality. They worry that if corn stover — the stalks, leaves and other residue left behind after harvest — is then collected and hauled away to use for biobased products, farm fields without crop cover will lead to increased erosion and runoff.
Rep. David Bly (DFL-Northfield) said new practices as the result of biotechnology “can sometimes do more harm than good” and that even though they may lead to producing new food products, the environmental degradation they cause “is concerning.”
Bly voiced support for more use of perennial crops in the production process and was joined by Rep. Clark Johnson (DFL-North Mankato) who had drafted an amendment that said 50 percent of the incentive payments would need to be for biomass products derived from perennial crops.
However, Johnson did not introduce the amendment, instead asking that he be included in the conversations to continue refining the bill as it moves forward.
And the bill was refined to get the support, then unrefined.
Wagenius points out the obvious
In Friday's hearing, Wagenius stated the obvious: without the language on use of perennial crops in the production process and a standard that works to raise water quality, taxpayers are being asked to pay incentives for (wait for it) no improvement in water quality.
Thus, Minnesotans are simply being asked to provide incentives to a business or too, without the clear public advantage (cleaner water) that the earlier agreement promised. Given the constant criticism that the ethanol and corn production industries face over the true cost--and disputed benefit--of first generation biofuels (corn ethanol), it's a pointed question indeed.
Why are Minnesota taxpayers being asked to pay these projects once they're underway?
Here's the Youtube clip of Wagenius:
We'll add a transcription of her remarks ASAP.
Photo: Larry Novakoske, chief financial officer at Central MN Ethanol Co-op, testified earlier in the session in support of a bill sponsored by Rep. Rod Hamilton, right, to establish advanced biofuel, renewable chemical and biomass production incentive programs. Photo by Andrew VonBank, via Session Daily.
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