At the beginning of Thursday's Environment and Natural Resources Conference Committee (SF 959), we witnessed a remarkable bit of melodrama.
After Minnesota House Environment committee chair Rick Hansen, DFL-S. St Paul, called the meeting to order, his state senate counterpartner Bill Ingebrigtsen, R-Alexandria, made a statement about how ill-treated he had been in Tuesday's meeting of the conference committee, how he never said he'd shut down agencies if he didn't get his way on clean car standards, made an offer, then said there's not point in talking about LCCMR provisions in the House bill, then logged off, taking his members and going home.
Who knows what happened to Wednesday's meeting for which Ingebrigtsen was supposed to hold the gavel. We would have thought that was a prime opportunity for a public tantrum, but then, Ingebrigtsen would have had to take responsibility for it. On Twitter Wednesday, Hansen observed that the senate-has-the-gavel meeting wasn't happening:
It’s 1:00 PM. ✅The Senate GOP was to Chair the Environment 🐝& Natural 🌱Resources Finance & Policy Conference 🌎Committee today now. ⏰No meeting scheduled. The House is ready to work #mnleg #environment pic.twitter.com/HYrytA4pAP
— Rep. Rick Hansen (@reprickhansen) May 5, 2021
Instead, the former Douglas County sheriff decided to used Hansen's moment to blame everything on DFL framing. Here's the Minnesota House Information Services YouTube of the moment on Thursday:
Here's a screenshot of the offer:
Yesterday, we posted in New low for #mnleg: Senate Republicans to shut down parks, Zoo & more over emission rules
Early Wednesday morning at the Star Tribune, Jennifer Bjorhus, Greg Stanley and Briana Bierschbach reported in Senate Republicans threaten to cut funding for Minnesota state parks, environmental programs over 'clean cars' rule:
Minnesota's state parks could shut down in July if the Walz administration does not bow to demands by Senate Republicans to drop plans for new "clean cars" emissions standards.
Along with parks, much of the environmental arm of state government would shut down over the impasse, which flared up during a conference committee meeting Tuesday on the Senate's proposed omnibus environment budget.
If passed, the Senate's version of the omnibus environment bill would slash tens of millions of dollars in environmental funding on a variety of projects, from combating chronic wasting disease in deer and the decline in pollinators to cleaning up forever chemicals in water supplies.
Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen, R-Alexandria, told the committee it is the only budget he will consider, and that he will not pass anything at all unless the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) rule-making on clean cars is stopped. . . .
We'll keep readers appraised of what's happened in Senator Bill's community theater production of The Art of The Deal. Perhaps he'll get even more operatic and sum up images of pre-MPCA conditions, like the game-changing spill of soybean oil from the Honeymead plant in Mankato into the Minnesota River.
Here's the Minnesota House Information Service YouTube of the entire hearing:
Photo: Aerial view of the Honeymead spill, which killed a lot of waterfowl and fish before Minnesota passed legislation creating the MPCA. Via MPCA.
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