Reading Time: 2 minutes
By Amanda Bilek, senior public policy director for the Minnesota Corn Growers Association
Activity at the Minnesota Legislature is beginning to pick up. Last week, Senator Torrey Westrom (R-Elbow Lake) introduced SF 944, which proposes to increase Minnesota’s biofuel standard from 10 to 15 percent, making E15 the new regular in the state. E15 is a cleaner-burning, higher octane, lower-priced option at the pump and nine out of 10 vehicles on the road today are approved to use it. Simply put: It’s a better fuel for Minnesota, from Minnesota.
This is the top legislative priority for the Minnesota Corn Growers Association (MCGA) in 2021. Our state has long been a leader in biofuels. Minnesota was the first state to set a 10 percent biofuel standard and, today, we continue our biofuels policy leadership efforts.
“The Minnesota Corn Growers Association would like to thank Senator Westrom for his continued support of biofuels and increasing our state’s biofuels standard to 15 percent,” MCGA President Tim Waibel said. “Higher blends of ethanol in our fuel supply benefit, not only corn farmers and our rural communities, but all Minnesotans. E15 provides consumers with a higher octane fuel at a lower price all while significantly reducing tailpipe emissions.”
The bill is scheduled for its first hearing in the Senate Agriculture Rural Development Finance and Policy committee on Wednesday, February 17th at 3pm. You can watch the committee hearing on one of the Senate media YouTube channels here. We will keep you posted on developments.
Governor Walz proposed his budget a couple weeks ago and, since that time, legislative committees of different jurisdiction have been hearing presentations from the state agencies on the budget proposals. Committees have also begun to hear individual bills.
Currently the Governor and the legislature are working under the assumption of a $1.2 billion dollar deficit that was forecasted at the beginning of December. On February 26th, the Minnesota Department of Management and Budget will present its most updated budget forecast. The legislature and the Governor will begin to craft the state’s next two-year budget using the numbers in the February forecast as they negotiate through the spring. Expect the Governor to issue a revised or supplemental budget shortly after the February forecast is released.
In addition to the work we are doing to advance our top legislative priority for ethanol, MCGA is monitoring several other bills and working on a variety of policy issues that are important to the state’s corn growers. MCGA grower leaders will have an opportunity to discuss our legislative priorities during our virtual day on the hill February 23rd.
Be sure to follow the MCGA blog and its social channels (Facebook, Twitter) for updates. You can also follow me on Twitter (@AjBilek).