Reding my way through the Minnesota House Agriculture Committee's omnibus bill and that posted by the Minnesota Senate Committee on Agriculture, Broadband, and Rural Development, I was surprised to see a gap in the budget: the upper chamber omitted funding for the statutory pollinator research account established in the agricultural fund.
The Senate committee version( on the committee calendar as scs1955a-3 DE (PDF))is scheduled to be heard tomorrow afternoon.
We're puzzled by the Senate committee's decision to leave out this statutory account.
On March 22, the Senate committee heard a request to fund the account as part of Protection Services in the Governor’s Department of Agriculture Minnesota Budget Recommendations Bill Walkthrough. A screenshot of the Protection Services budget request presented to the committee is at the top of this post.
What's more, according to the Senate's Committee Hearings and Actions for S.F. 39, on March 6, the bill was amended and laid over for possible inclusion in the omnibus bill. SF39 is a bill to fund the pollinator research account account; its chief author is Brooklyn Center DFLer Mary Kunesh. She serves on the committee.
The House companion bill is HF47. Its chief author is South St. Paul Democrat, House Environment Committee Chair and pollinator champion Representative Rick Hansen, who sits on the House Agriculture committee and continues to farm family heritage acres in Southeastern Minnesota.
As I said at the top of this post, I'm puzzled--nah, baffled why committee chair Aric Putnam, DFL-St. Cloud, left the statutory pollinator research account out of the omnibus bill.
Regulatory capture by ag-chemical industry lobbyists? Inexperience as a committee chair? A traumatic childhood experience with a squash bee or wasp sting? Secret loathing of monarch butterflies?
Those concerned about pollinators--an important part of Minnesota's food production system--can only hope someone on the committee offers a friendly amendment tomorrow to put funding and mention of the statutory pollinator research account back into the agriculture omnibus.
It's mostly a good bill--but it needs the buzz.
Note: In an earlier version of this post, Senator Putnam's first name was misspelled. Bluestem apologizes and has corrected the copy.
Screenshot: From the Governor’s Department of Agriculture Minnesota Budget Recommendations Bill Walkthrough presented to the Minnesota Senate Committee on Agriculture, Broadband, and Rural Development.
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