Minnesotans are facing calamitous price increases that could create a serious economic impact in our state due to the polar vortex that hit Minnesota in February.  The vortex expanded as far south as Texas and wreaked havoc on the natural gas market temporarily. On Thursday, the Senate passed a timely bill to provide immediate loan support to municipal utilities to protect ratepayers from seeing massive utility spikes next month.  

“The extended cold period reaching as far south as Texas reminds us how valuable and important a variety of energies are to meeting modern day families’ comforts, that can sometimes be taken for granted,” Senator Torrey Westrom (R-Elbow Lake) said Thursday. “If one cold snap like this polar vortex crashes the natural gas market to the point where the economic impacts resemble a natural disaster, there needs to be better planning by entities locking in their natural gas needs and supply for their customers. Rural areas use municipal utilities and co-ops and this is just one extra burden rural Minnesotans have to carry”. 

Municipal utilities are non-profit entities that do not have the capacity to carry the burden of the kind of price increase in the natural gas market. Hence, the bill will provide loans to municipal entities in order to allow them to spread the cost out over five years to their customer base, and not have the whole burden hit consumers in one bill-next month.

Click here to see a list of Minnesota’s Municipal Utilities.