As of May 24, 2011, the following legislation has been sent to the Governor. Various provisions that make exemptions for special interests have been highlighted:
SF1115: Environment Policy Bill
This bill weakens protections for various policies that protect our water and our Great Outdoors. Examples of exemptions that serve special interests include:
Sections 3 and 85: Eliminates the mandatory EAW for expansions at ethanol and biobutanol plants. It is unwise to eliminate the mandatory EAW for these projects, because of the certainty that these facilities will have significant environmental effects. Ethanol projects have a history of violating pollution permits.
Section 64: Weakens wetland replacement. This section makes it easier for the mining industry to destroy wetlands by weakening the ratio for wetland replacement. Specific industries should not be given special treatment when it comes to meeting their obligations to mitigate or prevent damage to Minnesota’s water.
Section 99: Threatens the future of the Poplar River, a designated trout stream, by granting a special exemption from state law to Lutsen Mountain Corporation, allowing it to remove massive amounts of river water for snowmaking. Lutsen continues to avoid the inconvenience of building a system to pump water out of Lake Superior at the expense of our water. The Poplar River has been found to be too polluted for aquatic life to survive by the MPCA and a clean-up plan is currently in development. Runoff from the increased snow and sediment load from this volume of water has not been analyzed or addressed and may well further aggravate the existing water quality problems in the river. This provision undermines the state’s regulation of withdrawals from public waters. The legislature’s action to exempt Lutsen from the DNR’s water management program undermines the spirit and intent of the Great Lakes Water Resources Compact that was enacted by the legislature in 2007 and passed by Congress in 2008.
SF1197: Omnibus Energy Policy Bill
This bill includes two provisions that specifically exempt special-interest businesses from environmental rules:
Section 30: The Spiritwood coal plant in North Dakota received a special exemption to allow coal-fired electricity to be imported into the state without having to reduce excess pollution.
Section 16: Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Power Plant, which has already received $41 million of public money and other special privileges including eminent domain, is no longer planned to be an innovative energy project but just a standard natural gas plant, received even more special privileges, including a drastically reduced permitting and public input process.
HF1010: Environment Finance bill
This bill contains disproportionate cuts to agencies and programs that protect Minnesota’s water and Great Outdoors, and also includes policy provisions that would weaken existing laws and exempt special interests:
Sections 11-14: Restricting DNR’s tree nursery operations by limiting the use of this high-quality planting stock to reforestation on state lands only and allowing excess trees to be sold only to licensed nurseries, not private landowners.
Section 30: Weakening permit standards for large factory farms.
Section 31: Exempting large ethanol facility expansions from mandatory environmental review.
Sections 35 and 52: Removing pollution restrictions for new coal plants.
Section 47: Threatening the future of native wild rice (Angustifolia variety), Minnesota’s state grain, by suspending enforcement of the current peer-reviewed, science-based sulfate standard for wild rice waters. In addition, we believe historic wild rice areas must be protected.
HF1140: Omnibus Transportation Finance Bill
This bill includes cuts of $109 million from general fund support to metro-area transit and $7.6 million from Greater Minnesota transit. The Metropolitan Council says the cuts would lead to a 30% reduction in regular route service and a 50 cent fare increase.
HF72: Coal Plant Restrictions
This bill repeals our current standards on building new coal fired power plants and allows utilities to build new coal plants without having to offset their pollution emissions, which is a critical part of the 2007 Next Generation Energy Act that had bipartisan support and was signed into law by Governor Pawlenty. Minnesota needs to invest in renewable energy and efficiencies – not dirty, expensive coal power that pollutes our air and water. Repealing this law will bring us back to last century’s technology and the cost of coal is currently rising. Combining enormous cost to consumers and ratepayers along with the lack of need for new baseload energy reveals there is no reason to rollback this standard or the clean energy path Minnesota has set.
SF943: Omnibus Game and Fish Bill
This bill includes a special exemption to extract water from the Poplar River, a trout stream that is polluted, further endangering the trout and the health of the river.
Section 74: The legislation threatens the future of the Poplar River, a designated trout stream, by granting a special exemption from state law to Lutsen Mountain Corporation, allowing it to remove massive amounts of river water for snowmaking. Lutsen continues to avoid the inconvenience of building a system to pump water out of Lake Superior at the expense of our water. The Poplar River has been found to be too polluted for aquatic life to survive by the MPCA and a clean-up plan is currently in development. Runoff from the increased snow and sediment load from this volume of water has not been analyzed or addressed and may well further aggravate the existing water quality problems in the river.
In addition to the threat to trout fishery, this provision undermines the state’s regulation of withdrawals from public waters. The legislature’s action to exempt Lutsen from the DNR’s water management program undermines the spirit and intent of the Great Lakes Water Resources Compact that was enacted by the legislature in 2007 and passed by Congress in 2008. The DNR cannot administer an efficient and effective program that complies with the Compact if that program is weakened with exemptions that are not based upon sound science as embodied in DNR rules.
HF1: Environmental Review
This legislation weakens, rather than simply streamlines, our environmental review laws and the rules for setting standards to protect our air, water and land. These changes undermine public confidence and participation in decisions that affect our neighborhoods, our health, and Minnesota’s Great Outdoors.
Section 2: Allows construction to take place before federal water discharge permits are issued by repealing the PCA rule prohibiting construction before final permit issuance. In some complex cases, where the permits are controversial or difficult, pre-permit construction may make it more difficult for the MPCA to deny a permit, because the impact of a permit denial will be to leave an already-constructed disposal system inoperable.
Section 5: Exempts the IRRRB from the Minnesota environmental review law. The legslature adopted an amendment exempting one state agency — the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB) — from the environmental review law. One important result is that the IRRRB can decide to give public money to private corporations for projects before the public knows anything about the environmental or public health effects. More generally, the amendment exempts the IRRRB from any requirement of the Minnesota Environmental Policy Act.
Section 6: Creates a “fox guarding the hen house” situation by allowing the project proposer to prepare the draft of the Environmental Impact Statement. Taking the responsible government unit (RGU) out of the initial process makes the underlying information and analysis unavailable to the public, which undermines critical public participation in the process. This compromises the neutrality of the process and will increase cost and delays by requiring Responsible Governmental Units to hire consultants to review the work of the proponent’s consultant.
Section 8: Makes citizen access to the justice system more difficult. The bill requires that a court appeal of an agency decision on environmental review must be made in the Court of Appeals, not in the local district court. This is especially onerous for rural citizens who then must travel to Saint Paul to view the hearing. Appellate court has costlier filing fees and there is less flexibility in briefing and scheduling appearances. The bill also contains language that may make it more likely that citizens would be required to post a bond effectively pricing them out of court.
Tags: Bad Bills List, Coal, Energy, Environmental Review, Funding, IRRRB, Lake Superior, Legislature, Lutsen, PolyMet, Poplar River, State Budget, Sulfate Standard