On Friday, Steve Karnowski reported in Divided Minnesota Legislature will return with much undone:
A proposed constitutional amendment to renew the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund through 2050 has made it through a couple Senate committees with bipartisan support. The current amendment, which dedicates 40% of state lottery proceeds to outdoors projects, expires in two years. The new amendment, if approved by voters in 2024, would increase that to 50%.
That's SF4131, which does indeed seem to be moving through Senate committees,as well as having support of key House DFLers
Unfortunately, not every effort to fund ENRTF projects is moving along so swimmingly. HF3765 got the approval in the Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resources Finance and Policy Committee, Session Daily reported on March 22 in Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund appropriations OK’d despite no LCCMR recommendation.
Update: In that earlier Session Daily article, Chair Rick Hansen is quoted:
“In general, what this [bill] does, is it fully funds the top-ranking scores and then it funds a next tier with a 10% cut and then it funds a second tier with a 20% cut to allow some of the lower-ranked scores to get filled,” Hansen said.
In a text to Bluestem Prairie, Hansen supplied a correction: " [The]House bill takes projects in scoring order with equal 11 percent cut." [end update]
Of the senate companion bill? The article concluded:
Based on another set of commission recommendations, the companion, SF4043, sponsored by Sen. Torrey Westrom (R-Elbow Lake), awaits action by the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Finance Committee.
That bill came up in committee on Tuesday, April 5, but failed to pass on a 4-4 vote.
[Update] Hansen sent this summary of the action, excerpted from LCCMR's Rebecca Nash's weekly update:
The Senate introduced an ENRTF appropriations bill, SF 4036 (authored by Westrom and Ingebrigtsen), which represented the [Della] Young Option considered by the commission. The Senate also introduced a COVID extension bill (SF 4043, Westrom and Ingebrigtsen) as companion to the introduced version of HF 3765. In order to have companion bills that can be conferenced, the author amended appropriation language into SF 4043 during a Senate [Environment] Finance committee hearing Tuesday (4/5/22). This A-2 Author's amendment modified the Young Option by deleting 25 projects, adding 19 projects that would be exempted from submitting work plans, changing funding levels for 11 other projects, and retroactively adjusting a project from laws of 1987. The amended bill failed to pass the committee on a 4-4 vote. It is possible the bill will be taken up again by committee after the break. [end update]
Here's the Senate Media video of the committee hearing.
But never fear. The agenda for the Wednesday, April 20 meeting of the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources Finance reveals they're trying again.
Agenda:
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- External linkS.F. 4043Westrom
Environment and natural resources trust fund appropriation extensions provision
- Link opens in separate tabCity of Buhl letter of Support for S.F. 4043
- Link opens in separate tabS.F. 4043 A-2 Amendment
- Link opens in separate tabS.F. 4043 Tracking Sheet
- Link opens in separate tabS.F. 4043 Comparison spreadsheet
- Link opens in separate tabSenate DFL offer for SF 4043 (004)
- External linkS.F. 4043Westrom
At least Westrom isn't crying in the press about the House delaying the funding.
We anticipate that Republican Senator Carrie Ruud will probably change her "No" to a "Yes" on this. We would think that funding the highest-scoring projects would be the way to go with taxpayer dollars. Chair Hansen, DFL-S. St. Paul, said back in March:
"This is the highest-ranking score, the highest-ranking vote of all the effort, a very frustrating effort, that went on last year,” Hansen said. “I wish we could have a unanimous vote like we did in 2021, but this is the cards we were dealt. I wish we could have come to an agreement, but we weren’t. It’s important for these projects and the project proposers, and to the Minnesotans who voted for this amendment and hopefully will vote for another amendment in the future, that we pick the best projects and that’s what I think this proposal does.”
The commission received 189 proposals accounting for $142 million in requests, according to Rebecca Nash, the commission director. Requests were whittled down to 99 proposals for $106 million and scored.
“In general, what this [bill] does, is it fully funds the top-ranking scores and then it funds a next tier with a 10% cut and then it funds a second tier with a 20% cut to allow some of the lower-ranked scores to get filled,” Hansen said.
We'll see what comes out of the sausage-maker at the end, thinking of our late father's warning about might go into brats.
Logo: The Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund seal.
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