Senate Democrats recently pushed through a hyper-partisan bill that combines appropriations for Energy and Environment issue areas, and throws it all into one lengthy bill. Minnesota is left with a bill that imposes new and costly regulations while also growing government bureaucracy to unsustainable levels. Republicans worked hard to provide amendments that protect farms, consumers, and taxpayers, and though Democrats seemed more receptive to amendments on this bill, many of the most important amendments were struck down.

To put it plainly, the Energy portion of this bill is a mess, and essentially delivers the “Blackout Bill 2.0.” This bill requires electric vehicles to be purchased by the state at a higher rate, mandates dealers to have training for electric vehicles, establishes a “Green Bank” to lend money out specifically for green projects, and mandates that commercial buildings document their energy usage information and share that data. This bill could have offered a golden opportunity to invest in reliable and affordable energy… We could have prioritized the use of Minnesota-made products and worked to ensure low costs that incentivize innovation. Unfortunately, all this bill does is add new burdensome mandates that make Minnesota even more unfriendly to businesses than it already has been. This bill is going to drastically drive up the cost of goods, and it’s going to fall squarely on the shoulders of taxpayers.

The Environment portion was equally terrible. Democrats focused their efforts on increasing bureaucracy and red tape—again, all at the cost of taxpayers and consumers. This bill includes aggressive restrictions on PFAS, which is a chemical found in numerous everyday products. States that have already limited this chemical have carved out specific exceptions for products like floss, cookware, and solar panels, yet this bill fails to do that. It also changes boating licensure requirements, making an arbitrary change that requires everyone born after 1987 to retake boating safety classes. This bill also cedes part of the Upper Sioux Agency State Park to the Upper Sioux Community, which sets the troubling precedent of making changes without community input.

That being said, Republicans were able to get a few amendments on the bill, though we don’t expect them to stay on through upcoming conference committees: requiring the DNR to offer paperless hunting and fishing licenses, protecting deer farmers from liability if their deer escape due to vandalism or destruction by a third party or natural disaster, prohibiting the use of slave labor in clean energy technology, and exempting wood waste from renewable energy standards. We offered many other equally good amendments, but those were routinely rejected.

Overall, this is a troubling bill. It relies on stripping due process and giving commissioners seemingly unlimited power to fee and fine folks however they choose. This bill has a lot of waste in it, and every taxpayer in this state should be incredibly worried about the out-of-control spending that has become routine for these Democrat bills. One party control is sending our state spiraling down an unsustainable path of runaway spending, and I am incredibly disappointed with the direction this session has taken.