Although there's been little fanfare in the media, bills to restore an updated Citizen's Board of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) are moving through both chambers of the Minesota Legislature.
On March 9, St. Paul DFLer Foung Hawj's SF1937 was heard in the Minnesota Senate State and Local Government and Veterans Committee. Video of the hearing--in two parts--is viewable here.
On Tuesday, March 14, the Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resources Finance and Policy Committee will consider the House version, Northfield DFLer Kristi Pursell's HF2076 Pollution Control Agency citizen membership reinstated. Pursell has served as the Executive Director of Clean River Partners, a Northfield-based environmental non-profit organization.
What's up with that?
Given some of the arguments made in the Senate committee by opponents of the bill, it's useful to review the history of how the Citizens Board was disappeared during the 2015 special session.
Back in 2014, Bluestem posted MN12A: Does Backer want to strip citizens of ability to ask MPCA for environmental studies?. That dream grew, as we reported in Co-founder of Senate Rural Task Force (est. 2014) attacks MPCA Citizen Board (est. 1967):
As Bluestem reported back in September's MN12A: Does Backer want to strip citizens of ability to ask MPCA for environmental studies?, the decision by the Citizens Board of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) to require Riverview Dairy to conduct an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was cited by Backer as an example of government overreach.
But according to a reliable source, this decision represents the first time a large feedlot was asked to conduct an EIS by the Citizens Board.
With Backer's win, part of the Republican wave that took back the Minnesota House of Representatives, Bluestem has been wondering whether Backer's notion of curbing or eliminating the Citizen Board of the MPCA might gain steam.
Apparently, in Wednesday's meeting of the Senate Rural Task, Senator Julie Rosen (R-Vernon Center) called the MPCA's structure into question.
Changing the MPCA's structure would be a significant change for the agency, established in 1967.
The only coverage of this meeting by the media is in Politics in Minnesota. Mike Mosedale reports in MPCA chief grilled over mega-dairy decision:
In August, after the Citizens Board of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency overruled a recommendation from agency staff and ordered a full-blown environmental impact statement for a proposed mega-dairy operation in Stevens County, environmentalists heralded the move as a historic and increasingly rare victory in their fight against the proliferation of so-called “factory farms.”
It was a much different story at the Capitol on Wednesday, where members of the Senate’s Rural Task Force grilled MPCA Commissioner John Linc Stine about the decision. . . .
Rosen also called into question the MPCA’s unusual governance structure, which grants major decision-making power to the board’s eight citizen members.
“We’ve given our Citizens Board a tremendous amount of power,” said Rosen. “I’m very concerned about what we’ve unleashed.” . .
Reading that, one might imagine that the Citizens Board was some new dirty hippie development, while the Senate Rural Task Force was carved in granite when the Glacial River Warren broke through the ice dam of Lake Agassiz.
But if the truth be told, the Senate Rural Task Force is a lot newer than the Citizens Board of the MPCA.
Although the archives of the meetings of the Citizens Board online only extend back to 2007, it appears that the citizens board has been part of the agency's structure since its creation in 1967. We find mention of it in Nexis All-New dating back to 1982. That's mostly because that's the sunrise for the database itself.
The Senate Rural Task Force? Announced in August 2014. . . .
The board was gone by the end of the end of the 2015 session.
Minnesota Public Radio's Elizabeth Dunbard covered the death of the board in MN lawmakers pull the plug on pollution-fighting citizens' panel. It's pretty good coverage, which includes the question:
Did one decision — to require an environmental impact statement for a proposed large dairy — lead to the board's elimination?
Yes and no. In August 2014, the board voted to disagree with MPCA staff and require an environmental impact statement for the proposed Baker Dairy in western Minnesota. The decision forced the dairy owners to look elsewhere to establish the business. Discussions about stripping the board of its power followed. But it wasn't the first time lawmakers had talked about taking such action.
Agribusiness groups and the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce have complained for years about the uncertainty the board adds to the permitting process. So support for eliminating the board had existed before, but the Baker Dairy decision likely added momentum to that cause. . .
In short, the Citizens Board was a target for years, but the board's action on the Baker Dairy permit was the instance for getting rid of the board.
At MinnPost, Doug Grow wrote in How the MPCA’s Citizens’ Board did itself in:
In a way, the Citizens’ Board of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency voted itself out of existence months ago. Last August, six members of the board had the audacity to order that a corporate farm operation go through an environmental impact study before building a facility for upwards of 9,000 dairy cattle.
The company, Riverview LLP, the state’s largest milk producer, responded by saying it would not go through the costly environmental process; the plan for the dairy operation in Stevens County was put on hold.
But it was the Citizens’ Board that took the harder hit. By saying “no” to Riverview, the board had said “no” to big ag.
In the Minnesota Legislature, it’s an unpopular thing to say no to big ag. Republican lawmakers, with approving nods from DFLers from the Iron Range, were angered by the board’s independence and quietly went about the business of writing the Citizens’ Board out of existence in the environment-agriculture budget bill. Though Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed the bill, he has indicated, in the name of compromise, he will accept the language that eliminates the board in exchange for changes in other parts of the bill.
“There were no hearings on this,” said Steve Morse, who is a former legislator, a former high-ranking official in the Department of Natural Resources and who now is the head of the Minnesota Environmental Partnership. “As far as I can tell, there was no case ever made for why this should happen. If it does happen, it’s a happy day for those who pollute.”
A unique body
For his part, Dayton hasn’t been clear as to why he’s willing to let the Citizens’ Board disappear from the public arena with little more than a whimper. But in fairness to Dayton, few seem to be making a big issue of the erasure of a unique body that has been around since the MPCA was created, in 1967.
Grant Merritt, who was the second director of the MPCA, said part of the reason there’s not a greater uproar surrounding Dayton’s apparent decision to let the board die is that the board’s structure has long since been changed — and weakened. Under Gov. Arne Carlson, a business-friendly MPCA commissioner, Charlie Williams, worked with the Legislature to limit the power of the board in a number of ways, including making the MPCA commissioner the chairman of the board.
“Originally,” Merritt said, “the board elected its own chairman. It was created to be the policy-making body of the agency. The original structure was brilliant. Sen. Gordon Rosenmeier (who caucused as a conservative) had it structured so that the hot environmental issues of the day came through the board. That hasn’t happened since Carlson made the changes.”
Rather than being at the head of the line in the process, the board ended up at the back. It was to approve — and on rare occasions reject — recommendations made by MPCA staff.
The Stevens County vote
That’s what happened last August 26. MPCA staff recommended to the board that Riverview be granted a permit to go ahead with its dairy project without an environmental impact statement. It should be noted Riverview, with huge operations around the state, has received high marks from the MPCA for its environmental performance.
But the Citizens’ Board listened closely as people from the region of the proposed dairy testified about their concerns about the project. What would be the impact on water and air, they wondered. What would the impact of large numbers of dairy trucks be to air quality, roads and safety? Many expressed concern that property values in the areas surrounding the proposed operation would plummet, that families would leave. . . .
That's certainly a different history than Senator Drazkowski's ranting about the earlier version of the board causing a "war" between rural and urban Minnesotans. Perhaps he's confused the real past with his own version of reality, the one where furry kids use cat boxes in schools.
Renville county's Republican Senator Andrew Lang is confused about the history of that earlier board's power. It's amazing how these guys can confuse a discussion.
You'll have to watch the hearings here to get the full impact.
Bluestem suspects the House Environment Committee will hear much of the same place-baiting and revised history in Tuesday's hearing. We'll leave committee members opposed to the bill to create their own playlist,
So who's looking to restore the Citizen's Board?
The Senate DFL issued a press release about the hearing, Senator Hawj’s Bill to Provide Oversight of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Heard in the State and Local Government Committee:
On Thursday, the Senate State and Local Government and Veterans Committee heard and passed Senator Foung Hawj’s (DFL-St. Paul) bill to reinstate the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) citizens board (SF 1937). Following the hearing, Senator Hawj released the following statement:
“Minnesota has greater environmental justice goals now more than ever as we work towards a zero-carbon future and prioritizing a healthy climate. The board was created in 1967 to provide oversight of the MPCA and was later eliminated in 2015. There needs to be checks and balances in our government, and by reinstating the board, we do just that. The board will check the MPCA’s actions, and this is essential for providing an open, accessible, and democratic process for review. The board must represent the state in terms of race, gender, and geography, ensuring that the MPCA addresses the needs of communities across Minnesota.”
The bill passed the Senate State and Local Governmental and Veterans Committee and will head to the Environment, Climate, and Legacy Committee.
There's useful information about the supporters of the bill on Twitter.
Senator @founghawj kicks off our first-ever #MNsenate hearing to reinstate the MPCA Board! 55 agricultural, environmental, labor, and social justice organizations are backing this bill that would make the MPCA's decision-making transparent, democratic, and people-centered. pic.twitter.com/yhVjkFvA5l
— Land Stewardship Project (@LSPnow) March 9, 2023
And the bill has passed its first committee stop! Thank you to bill champion Sen. @founghawj and thank you to all the testifiers & audience members that came to show their support from Todd, Renville, Dakota, Goodhue, Carver, Stevens, Winona, Becker, Hennepin, & Ramsey Counties! https://t.co/uxmocLEtEx pic.twitter.com/z43KuORQc4
— Land Stewardship Project (@LSPnow) March 10, 2023
Though there's been little coverage of this legislation, it's worth watching to see if it passes and restores to local citizens the sort of power people in Stevens County possessed before the board was swept away by agribusiness.
Related posts
- Bill to restore MPCA Citizens Board gets 2nd House hearing 3/7; commissioner Bishop neutral
- Guy who works for dairy at heart of elimination of MPCA Citizen Board appointed to new fake board
- MN Senate Environment & Energy Committee to hold hearing on purpose of environmental review
- Fehr factor vs citizen power: so a real discussion happened in a Minnesota House committee
- Co-founder of Senate Rural Task Force (est. 2014) attacks MPCA Citizen Board (est. 1967
- MN12A: Does Backer want to strip citizens of ability to ask MPCA for environmental studies?
Photo: From a tweet by Senator Hawj.
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