Legislative Update: Omnibus bills move out of committee

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By Amanda Bilek, senior public policy director for the Minnesota Corn Growers Association

We have reached the phase of the Minnesota Legislative Session where committees of jurisdiction in the House and Senate have passed their omnibus bills out of committee. These large bills are making a final committee stop in each body before being discussed and debated on the floor. The various omnibus bills represent how each body would design a nearly $52 billion budget for the state for the next two years.

Since Minnesota has the only divided legislature in the country, there are significant differences between the House and Senate, not in the overall budget amount, but in the details of the various bills. Overall, the House DFL is proposing a $52.5 billion budget and the Senate GOP is proposing a $51.9 billion budget. MCGA staff have reviewed hundreds of pages of legislative language and budget spreadsheets to bring you the details from the agriculture and environment bills that are important for corn farmers to know.

Agriculture

There are some similar provisions in the House (HF 1524) and Senate (SF 958) bills worth noting.

• Funding for biofuels infrastructure. The Senate proposes $3.5 million per year ($7 million for the biennium) and the House proposes $2 million per year ($4 million for the biennium) for an ongoing base program at the MN Department of Agriculture. The House biofuels infrastructure program is a recommendation from Governor Walz and would also create a Biofuels Infrastructure Assistance Advisory Committee to advise the Agriculture Commissioner and leverage federal and private sources of funding. In case you missed it, last week Minnesota Corn announced a $1 million commitment to a future state ethanol infrastructure program.
• Base funding for the Agriculture Research, Education and Extension Technology Transfer program (AGREETT) is maintained. Since 2015, when the AGREETT program was established by the legislature, significant progress has been made toward restoring and expanding capacity and research capabilities at the University of Minnesota in the College of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS), Extension and the College of Veterinary Medicine. The funding has led to the hiring of 20 faculty positions, 11 extension educators and a number of needed infrastructure upgrades in the areas of crop and livestock productivity, soil fertility, water quality and pest resistance.
• Farm safety grants are appropriated $100,000 each year.

The policy section of the Senate bill includes a provision that would prohibit the MPCA from imposing certain restrictions on an NPDES (discharge) permit. A permit could not include conditions that would stop a producer from applying solid manure in February and March. Further, a permit could not require a cover crop be planted for September application.

The policy section of the House bill includes language that would require a pollinator warning on seeds that are treated with neonicotinoid pesticides and prohibits the use of treated seed as a food, feed, oil or ethanol feedstock. The bill would prohibit the disposing of neonicotinoid treated seeds by composting or incinerating in a home or dwelling, or burying near water. The bill also includes a pesticide fee increase from 0.55 percent to 0.9 percent on annual gross sales on both ag and non-ag pesticides.

Both bills contain numerous other financing and policy provisions as well, but the summary above highlights the priorities for MCGA and the policy issues we are tracking most closely.

Last week, MCGA President Tim Waibel offered verbal testimony on the Senate bill, which you can watch here and submitted written testimony on the House bill, which you can read here.

Environment

The Senate environment bill (SF 959) is being carried by Senator Bill Ingebrigtsen (R-Alexandria). A few provisions to highlight include:

• Prohibit the MPCA from imposing certain restrictions on a NPDES (discharge) permit. A permit could not include conditions that would stop a producer from applying solid manure in February and March nor could a permit require a cover crop to be planted for September application. This language is also included in the Senate omnibus agriculture bill described above.  
• Disallow the MPCA from having additional requirements related to a pasture owned or used by a feedlot operator other than the restrictions under a manure management plan.
• Prohibit the DNR and the MPCA from enforcing or attempting to enforce an unadopted rule including any guidelines, bulletin, criterion, manual standard, interpretive statement, policy plan or similar pronouncement that has not been previously adopted through the rulemaking process.
• Clarify that the DNR must provide notice to an affected entity of a revision in the Public Water Inventory (PWI), must send a notification or a copy of a map that has been revised to a county that is affected by a revision and must give access to a copy of a county PWI maps if requested.

The House environment bill (HF 1076) is being carried by Rep. Rick Hansen (DFL- South Saint Paul). A few provisions to highlight:

• $1 million for a Soil Health Cost-Share Program with a goal of 30 percent of privately owned farmland using soil health practices by 2030. Practices could include, but is not limited to, cover crops, perennial crops, no-till or reduced tillage, strip cropping or managed rotational grazing.
• Allow cities to ban the use of pollinator lethal pesticides.
• Ban the use of chlorpryifos on WMAs, state parks, state forest, aquatic management areas or an SNA.
• Require public information meetings to be held every 5 years for non-expiring air permits.
• Appropriate funds to MPCA to conduct treated seed disposal rulemaking and would also clarify and make clear the regulatory jurisdiction of state agencies and local government regarding treated seed.

The next update will dig into the transportation bill, appropriations for the Clean Water Fund and the current status of tax bills in the House and Senate.

Be sure to follow the MCGA blog and its social channels (Facebook, Twitter) for updates. You can also follow me on Twitter (@AjBilek).