It's good to watch lawmakers discuss a bill and vote on it in committee without yelly moments, while airing disagreements. So it was in the first meeting of the Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resources Finance and Policy on Tuesday afternoon.
At Session Daily, Nate Gotlieb reports in House panel approves $61 million for environmental projects:
An annual bill that approves funding for dozens of water quality, research, environmental protection and environmental education projects has been approved by a House committee after falling victim to a partisan disagreement last summer.
On Tuesday, the House Environment and Natural Resources Finance and Policy Committee approved HF30, which would appropriate $61.4 million for dozens of projects statewide, by a 17-2 vote. The bill, which has no Senate companion, now heads to the House Ways and Means Committee.
It is nearly identical to one that was approved by DFL-controlled House last spring but was sidelined after the Republican-controlled Senate tied its passage to delaying the implementation of proposed clean car standards.
Rep. Rick Hansen (DFL-South St. Paul), the committee chair and bill sponsor, is optimistic it would become law this session. He said that hope stems from recent comments by Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen (R-Alexandria), who chairs the Senate Environment Natural Resources and Finance Committee, and has said he expects the legislation to be moved.
The bill would appropriate money from the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, the source of which is Minnesota State Lottery revenue. The 17-member Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources, which includes five Republican and five DFL lawmakers, recommends which projects to fund.
In recent years, DFL and Republican lawmakers have clashed on whether the trust fund should be used to pay for wastewater treatment projects. Democrats say bonding should be used to pay for such projects, while Republicans say using the trust fund to pay for wastewater infrastructure is prudent.
No funds for wastewater treatment projects are included in the Hansen bill.
Ingebritsen's comments were reported by Tony Kennedy in the January 8 Star Tribune Outdoors section article, Held-up outdoors projects, issues piled high for Minnesota lawmakers:
In another outdoors story line, Republicans and Democrats will deal once again with an as-yet-unapproved set of enhancement projects advanced in 2019 by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR). Money for the $61 million compilation is in the bank, but both sides have said Republicans withheld Senate approval last year as a way to push back against state implementation of a "clean car" emissions rule for new cars.
Two Republicans — Sen. Carrie Ruud of Breezy Point and Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen of Alexandria — both said in interviews this week that it's time to set the LCCMR projects in motion. In addition to the projects advanced by LCCMR in 2019, a second bill will be introduced at this year's session, a record-setting package of LCCMR enhancement projects assembled in 2020. The new measure offers $70.8 million in lottery proceeds for 88 projects ranging from clean water initiatives to conservation of imperiled turtles and preservation of wild rice.
"We should get those two bills off our plate,'' said Ruud, who chairs the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Policy and Legacy Finance Committee. "They need to get done and out the door so we can put people to work and get the projects done.''
Ingebrigtsen, who chairs the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Finance Committee, said he's expecting early movement on the LCCMR legislation.
Approval also is expected for a $127 million bill laying out dozens of new Outdoor Heritage Fund projects related to hunting, fishing, nongame wildlife, clean water and other resources. Constitutionally directed tax money for the enhancements comes from the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment.
Ruud, Ingebrigtsen, Meier and Rep. Rick Hansen, D-South St. Paul, provided outlooks for the session in separate interviews with the Star Tribune. Hansen is chairman of the House Environment and Natural Resources Finance & Policy Committee.
He said his committee will quickly revive last year's LCCMR projects bill. Until the Senate takes similar action, Republicans will be holding the measure hostage, Hansen said.
Hansen was as good as his word, bringing HF30 to a vote in the session's first meeting of the Environment and Natural Resources Finance and Policy committee. After airing his concerns with the "clean car" emissions rule for new cars, minority lead Josh Heintzeman, R- Nisswa, voted for the bill, as did all Republican members save Jeff "Goose Poop" Backer, R-Browns Valley, and Steve Green, R-Fosston.
We'll have more about the clean car rule in future posts.
Here's the Minnesota House Information Services YouTube of the hearing. We've set it to scrolling to the beginning of the discussion of the bill. Occasionally, there are some hiccups with the Zoom technology.
Update: Committee member Kelly Morrison's tweet sums it up:
Thanks to @reprickhansen for carrying HF30, which includes #LCCMR recs from 2020 (held up last year over unrelated issues). Passed 17-2. Next stop: Ways and Means. Let’s get this done so important projects to protect air, water, land and wildlife can proceed! #ENRTF #mnleg pic.twitter.com/yzcvvKvK8Z
— Kelly Morrison (@Morrison4MN) January 12, 2021
Image: Morrison's tweet of the committee Zoom.
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