Minnesota House Passes Environment, Natural Resources, Climate and Energy Bill

(KNSI) — The Minnesota House of Representatives passed the 2023 Environment, Natural Resources, Climate, and Energy Budget Bill Monday.

The $670 million in new funding will go toward the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the Board of Water and Soil Resources, the Metropolitan Council Parks, the Conservation Corps, the Minnesota Zoo, and the Science Museum of Minnesota.

The Environment and Natural Resources portion of the bill includes $93 million for replanting trees and responding to emerald ash borer, $6.6 million to address aquatic invasive species, and a package to slow the spread of chronic wasting disease in Minnesota’s wild and farmed deer populations. Money is also appropriated for a PFAS prevention package that sets water standards and bans non-essential PFAS use in various products.

The climate and energy provisions of the legislation include $348 million in new funding to lower energy costs, create more clean energy jobs, and address and combat climate change. It holds almost $50 million in weatherization funding and $65 million in solar and storage technology investments. House Democrats claim the legislation “ensures that Minnesota remains a clean energy leader by establishing programs to unlock and leverage federal energy programs and private funding, including creating a Green Bank to work with public and private investors to finance cleaner, less expensive, and more reliable sources of energy.”

House Republicans say the bill does nothing to provide greater affordability, reliability and safety, saying there are mandates which drive up energy costs, unnecessary or complicated regulations and subsidies for the richest Minnesotans to purchase expensive electric vehicles. They also call the new taxes in the bill “completely unnecessary to balance the budget” and add it’s “unjustifiable for Democrats to want to raise energy costs at a time when the state has a historic surplus, and Minnesota family budgets already are stretched thin by today’s higher prices.”

They also attack the increases in fees for boating and fishing licenses, saying it would make it more difficult for people to enjoy the outdoors.

The bill passed the House along party lines and is now in the hands of the Senate.

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