It's rare that a meeting of the Minnesota House Environmental and Natural Resource Policy and Finance Committee goes by without Chair Dan Fabian, R-Roseau, doesn't lament that he just can't get together with people to talk about resolving problems over coffee.
Fiddle-dee-dee with all that transparency and process.
Sadly, when representative Fabian gets his chance to sit down for informal discussion, things don't go well, if Hoping to avoid political gridlock, Gov. Dayton steps up outreach to legislators, Ricardo Lopez recent article in the Star Tribune is accurate. Lopez reports:
Eager to avoid the kind of contentious finish that has marred recent legislative sessions, and trying to build political support for his priorities, Gov. Mark Dayton in recent weeks has stepped up outreach to state lawmakers in a series of bipartisan private meetings.
The goal is to advance his own understanding of what matters to legislators and “find areas of common ground,” Dayton said in a recent interview. Topics at the four small-group meetings so far were transportation, energy, higher education and public schools. He also meets regularly with legislative leaders from both parties. . . .
But not so much for Fabian:
Still, it’s not easy to please all 201 legislators.
Rep. Dan Fabian, R-Roseau, said he was frustrated by a recent meeting with officials with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency — led by a Dayton appointee — to discuss his bill to overhaul environmental permitting and eliminate the Environmental Quality Board. Fabian, chairman of the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee, said he was told the governor opposed his bill and would not negotiate its contents. The meeting, scheduled for an hour, ended after only a few minutes, he said.
“I understand we have some differences,” Fabian said. “When do we not have differences around this place? I get that. But in order to be able to address our differences and move on and come to some sort of agreement, we need to talk about stuff. Would you say I’m frustrated? Yes, very much.”
Jaime Tincher, Dayton’s chief of staff, said that’s not unusual: “Members of the Governor’s Cabinet and senior staff regularly negotiate with members of the Legislature, but only Mark Dayton was elected by the people of Minnesota to be their governor and make decisions on their behalf,” she said in a statement responding to Fabian’s criticism.
Well, there's that. But testimony by Minnesota Commissioner of Agriculture, Dave Frederickson, who chairs the Environmental Quality Board, shared a beef of his own in his committee testimony: that Fabian never approached him about the purpose and need for his bill to eliminate the EQB, which Frederickson believes is highly regarded by citizens around the state.
Just watch the end of his testimony here:
Let's review: Fabian doesn't have to meet with the Dayton commissioner who chairs the EQB to talk about why the Roseau Republican feels the board has to go, but if MPCA staffers don't immediately concede ground, he cuts off a planned hour meeting within minutes.
Seems that Fabian is the bully in the bully pulpit of the Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resource Committee, on behalf of a bill the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce wrote. In The Chamber bill: gives new rights to businesses while taking rights from citizens, state representative Jean Wagenius outlines problems with the entire bill:
Under the guise of streamlining, the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce is trying to turn Minnesota’s environmental review laws upside down.
The Chamber bill, HF 1291, puts polluters in charge and, in the process, cuts Minnesotans who may be affected by new pollution out of the process. Let us count the ways:
1. It is hard to say which provision in the Chamber bill is the worst, but the one letting the polluter prepare its own environmental impact statement would be in anyone’s top three list. So instead of the agency gathering information about the proposed project and asking for public comment, the agency is relegated to determining the completeness of the proposers “EIS” and possibly modifying it without having gathered the underlyingl data that would inform good decision making. More subtly, if the proposer drafts the EIS, what role does the public now have? Moreover, there would no longer be public access to the documents used to draft the EIS; government documents are subject to the Data Practices Act but private company documents are not.
2. Affected citizens would no longer be able to request a contested case hearing to review a mining permit or any other decision related to a mining permit.
3. Agencies would be required to start a permit at the same time they start environmental review even though the information gathered in the environmental review is supposed be the foundation for the permit. Public input is undercut if the permit is underway before the public has a chance to weigh in.
4. A draft permit must be given to the applicant for comment before it is issued. The public that will be affected by the project doesn’t have the same right.
5. A proposer who has the ability to pay extra can get an expedited permit leaving those without extra money –new or smaller businesses–at the back of the line.
6. A provision that gives automatic approval for wetland replacement sites skirts local, BOWSR, and DNR decisions on wetland replacement sites.
7. The Environmental Quality Board is eliminated, eliminating another opportunity for citizens to participate, eliminating sunshine.
Unfortunately, there is more but one does get the picture!
Let's hope the Governor vetoes this one if and when it reaches his desk.
Photo: Dan Fabian, who believes the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce made him an offer the Dayton Administration better not refuse.
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