Earlier this week, Bluestem noted in House committee advances ‘Lawns to Legumes’ program--and neo-nics in game animals bills that Session Daily had been quiet about one bill heard by the Minnesota House Environment Finance and Policy Committee:
Session Daily's article about Wednesday's meeting of the Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resources Committee only looks at one bill that was taken up, Shakopee DFLer Brad Tabke's HF207 bill funding the Lawns to legumes grant program. The full agenda included Chair Rick Hansen's HF206, which would examine the impacts of neonicotinoids on game species.
We've posted about both programs, though the wildly popular Lawns to Legumes is known internationally.
But as we get to the bottom of a column by the House committee minority lead, Nisswa Republican Joshua Heintzeman's Guest Opinion: Hitting the ground running this legislative session, in Saturday's Brainerd Dispatch, Bluestem learns we were totally off-base. Heintzeman writes:
As for myself, I am greatly concerned that the Democrat majorities in the House, Senate and Governor Walz will look to spend most of your surplus on programs that will further grow government’s role in our daily lives at the expense of personal freedom and liberty. I will fight to make sure that this budget surplus is returned to you.
I'm also closely tracking things happening at the capitol that Democrats are not talking about when messaging to the general public. For example, there's a big push in St. Paul to implement automatic funding increases for agencies and programs that would be tied to inflation, major changes to our K-12 education system requiring comprehensive sex education taught to students in third grade and younger, and more money for nonsensical programs like "lawns to legumes."
Neither Republicans nor Democrats have a mandate to move these sorts of obscure priorities, so I hope they fall to the legislative rust heap. . . .
Golly jeepers, Josh. Things "Democrats are not talking about when messaging to the general public?"
The first item in his punchlist? Adding inflation when making budget projections.
How did he not see Briana Bierschbach' s January 5 article, As state budget forecast is released, support builds to add inflation back into projections?
And there's Michelle Griffith's January 9 article, Bill adding inflation to Minnesota budget forecast expenditures to go to House floor. at the Minnesota Reformer.
On Friday's Op-Ed page at the Star Tribune, there's this tucked away in the lead editorial, Restore truth in state budgeting:
This Star Tribune Editorial Board has for years decried this bit of budgetary hocus-pocus. Finally, this year there appears to be a strong movement by top DFLers, who control the House and Senate, to return Minnesota to truth in budgeting.
Chief among these is House Commerce Chairman Zack Stephenson, who is leading the push. "This has frustrated a lot of us for a lot of years," Stephenson said. "It's dishonest and it makes the state appear to be in a much healthier financial situation than it really is." For example, this year's $17 billion projected surplus does not account for the fact that goods and services the state purchased last year will cost more in the coming years.
"Picture your family doing a budget in January 2022, sitting at the kitchen table and looking out at the rest of the year," Stephenson told an editorial writer. "You would have to assume that even if you got an inflationary increase in your salary, all your expenses would cost exactly the same as in 2021. By the time you got to December 2022, you'd be in a world of pain and your budget would be out of whack. I don't know of any responsible business that does this." Stephenson described it as a "uniquely Minnesotan absurdity."
Critics of restoring inflation claim it puts spending on autopilot. But, as Stephenson notes, "The forecast doesn't appropriate one dollar. The Legislature still has to make the decisions on how to appropriate money. This just means they have an accurate financial picture to work from."
Deciding to spend less, to do less than the previous year "is a valid decision the Legislature could make," he said. "They are entitled to make that decision. But we need to be honest about what we're doing. What we've done for years now is deliver less for Minnesotans while pretending that we are doing more."
Five former finance commissioners who served in the administrations of DFL, Republican and Independence Party governors — including the one who served under Pawlenty — have called for restoring inflation to the forecast. . . .
Yup, Representative Heintzeman: that's so keeping the idea out of the public's attention.
Those sneaky Democrats.
Moving on to the third item on his list, we note that one thing he's not telling his constituents is that Shakopee Democrat Brad Tabke's Lawns to Legumes' bill was in fact heard on Wednesday 11, 2023 in the committee where Heinzteman serves as minority lead.
Here's the Minnesota House Information Services YouTube of the hearing.
02:39 - Board of Water and Soil Resources overview.
42:06 - HF207 (Tabke) Lawns to legumes grant program funding provided, and money appropriated.
Tabke--who defeated first-term Erik Mortensen in November--told his constituents about the hearing twice in items posted on his page: Rep. Tabke’s ‘Lawns to Legumes’ funding passes first committee hurdle and Lawns, Legumes, and Legalization.
And there's this in Session Daily's House environment panel advances ‘Lawns to Legumes’ pollinator program:
Legislators are seeking to continue a groundbreaking program to grow bee habitats.
Minnesota’s Lawns to Legumes program offers grants and technical assistance to establish pollinator-friendly native plants on residential lawns. The program helps landowners replace grass with plants such as honeysuckle, clover, thistle, sunflowers and goldenrods.
Small patches can provide big boosts to pollinators, Marla Spivak, Distinguished McKnight Professor at the University of Minnesota, told the House Environment and Natural Resources Finance and Policy Committee Wednesday.
Sponsored by Rep. Brad Tabke (DFL-Shakopee), HF207 would appropriate $4 million from the General Fund in the next biennium to the Board of Water and Soil Resources for Lawns to Legumes. . . .
We're not sure why Heintzeman fancies that McArthur Foundation Award recipient and Minnesota AgriGrowth Council's Distinguished Service Award winner would be trying to promote "nonsensicial" programs.
This isn't the first time Bluestem has been blown away by the Nisswa Republican's perspicacity. Who can forget his fantods at the gall of the late great indigenous artist Jim Denomie that we covered in GOP lead on Legacy Finance objects to image of Trump groping woman's pussy, blames painter and Some house GOPers want to take arts & cultural heritage fund from state & regional boards.
Heintzeman's environmental vision
If Heintzeman thinks creating habitat for pollinators is "nonsensical," what is his vision? Readers only need to read Chelsey Perkins' news coverage, House District 6B: Heintzeman says he knows district’s values and represents them, published in the Brainerd Dispatch when apparently the Nisswa lawmaker thought a red wave was coming, rather than the Democratic trifecta.
Here's the vision Heintzeman saw for Minnesota environmental policy:
As the GOP lead on the Environment and Natural Resources Finance and Policy committee, Heintzeman sees the potential for a chairmanship in his future if Republicans take control of the House. This would mean a lot more responsibility and more aggressive work in the subject area, Heintzeman said, including a focus on the impacts of regulatory policies on the regional level.
Approaches to regulation by Democratic leaders in the governor’s office and state departments are placing burdens on the mining industry, Heintzeman said, and these barriers are resulting in jobs going elsewhere. He noted a recent decision by Talon Metals to build a processing plant in North Dakota instead of near its Aitkin County mining site, which he said reflected the slow, arduous permitting process in Minnesota.
“That’s an example of an issue that is just a terrible, terrible dereliction of duty if you ask me, in that this administration can’t seem to figure out a way to connect the dots and do what we do best, which is high standards of safety for our environment — our natural environment around us — and provide the opportunity for people in the region to have those jobs,” Heintzeman said.
Heintzeman said he would also seek to reverse a Minnesota Pollution Control Agency rule tying the state’s emission standards to those in California, which requires auto dealers to make more electric and hybrid vehicles available to consumers by 2024. A recent decision in California to require all new vehicles to run on hydrogen or electric sources by 2035 could also be implemented here. Such a decision should have been vetted through the legislative process, he said, rather than an agency.
Heintzeman said he supports lifting a moratorium on new nuclear facilities in the state because fuel disposal practices have drastically improved. He said he also believes hydropower should be considered a renewable source as energy companies seek to meet onerous mandates concerning green energy.
Another issue likely to come before the committee is the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, which is funded by lottery proceeds and is set to expire in 2025. Too much of this money goes toward the general fund, Heintzeman said, and would be better spent on aging wastewater infrastructure, as an example, to promote clean water.
We're not sure how the constitutionally dedicated ENRTF goes into the general fund, as we've not seen that line on a LCCMR budget. Governing language in statue notes that "five percent of the principal of the fund for water system improvements as provided by law," and " assets of the fund shall be appropriated by law for the public purpose of protection, conservation, preservation, and enhancement of the state's air, water, land, fish, wildlife, and other natural resources," so we're not sure just what the heck he was talking about.
Mining, nukes, dirty emissions.
But watch out for those sneaky Democrats secretly moving on pollinator habitat.
Related posts
- Press Release: MN BWSR awards over 1000 Lawns to Legumes Individual Support grants
- Lawns to Legumes program earned great media for MN; 5 GOP senators want to rob funding
- Minnesotans, your yard can BEE the change: BWSR taking Lawns to Legumes requests
Photo: State Representative Josh Heintzeman, R-Nisswa. Photo by Chelsey Perkins, Brainerd Dispatch.
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