Senate Democrats today passed an Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Environment and Climate supplemental budget bill. While the agriculture and energy portions have bipartisan support, this legislation is packaged with partisan commerce policies that add excessive burdens and fail to protect Minnesota consumers.

Included in the bill is a controversial commerce section that adds excessive burdens for Minnesotans and fails to deliver on consumer safety and protection. One concerning Democrat provision requires an individual who is purchasing or selling copper to purchase an annual license at a cost of $250 from the Department of Commerce, beginning Jan. 1, 2025. The licensure requirement will hit many Minnesotans who perform their own home and auto repairs, as well as industries such as scrap metal dealers, hardware stores, auto repair shops and many other lines of legitimate business.

Senator Jeff Howe (R-Rockville) offered an amendment to create a working group to discuss metal theft and share information related to prevention of the crime.

“We should not be criminalizing folks who are simply looking to recycle their copper, but that’s exactly what this bill will do,” said Howe. “We did what we could to make it better, but Democrats failed to accept many of our amendments. But I am glad they were willing to create a working group, which will hopefully determine a better way to handle theft of recyclable metals.”  

Also included is an energy portion of the bill, which drains the Renewable Development Account (RDA), appropriates money to metro-centric projects, funds narrow interests, and approves working groups of questionable value. Though Republicans offered the ‘A+ Energy Plan’ as an amendment to ensure Minnesota can move toward 100% clean energy standards without sacrificing reliability, it was not accepted.

The final section of the bill focuses on agriculture and makes notable investments on improving soil health and providing support for water quality issues of private wells in Southeast Minnesota. It also includes $500,000 in fiscal year 2025 for the Soil Health Financial Assistance Program. A Republican provision allocates $375,000 for grants to secondary career and technical education (CTE) programs in Minnesota high schools to offer instruction in meat cutting and butchery.