John Tuma’s Capitol Update – March 12, 2010

“Charge those lines!”
- General Winfield Scott Hancock, Gettysburg, July 2, 1863

That was the command given to Colonel Colvill of the Minnesota 1st in the midst of the second day of fighting outside of the previously unknown and sleepy hamlet of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  Colvill, along with only a portion of the famed Minnesota 1st Regiment of 262 men, had just arrived on the battlefield after an arduous 20-mile march toward the sound of the developing battle.  Upon their arrival on the scene, Union forces were in chaos along the soon to become hallowed grounds known as Cemetery Ridge south of Gettysburg.  Sixteen hundred Confederates from Alabama, under the command of Gen. Cadmus Wilcox, moving quickly to take the high ground along this important place on the battlefield.The men of the Minnesota 1st were seasoned veterans of the Civil War, having the distinction of being the first unit to volunteer for the Union cause back in 1861.  They had seen action from Bull Run to Fredericksburg, and when this command to charge into the oncoming Alabamans was given, they knew full well the order meant the highest sacrifice.  Without hesitation the 262 Minnesotans rushed down Cemetery Ridge, which looks more like a casual hill at this place on the field, to clash with the advancing Confederates.  The ensuing bloody encounter slowed the Confederate advance for only a few minutes.  As a result, the Minnesota 1st experienced the highest casualty rate of any military unit in American history with 88% of those charging down that hill either killed or wounded.

To casual observers of the legislative process, some of the activities can seem like senseless sacrifices without much gain — like the charge of the Minnesota 1st.  That certainly would appear to be true for the environment communities’ effort to pass SF2349 to protect our water from pollution caused by new and dangerous mining being proposed in northern Minnesota.  After a great deal of effort from several of our MEP organizations and our chief author Sen. Jim Carlson (DFL-Eagan), we finally secured hearings on this sensible piece of legislation.  The bill focuses on improving the damage deposit mining companies must have in place before they can start mining to ensure that they operate the mine safely and clean it up upon closure.  This new mining of precious metals is much different than iron ore mining and has produced significant environmental damage in other parts of the country due to sulfuric acid and heavy metal runoff.

On Monday and Wednesday of this week, the Senate Environment and Natural Resources committee chaired by Sen. Satveer Chaudhary (DFL-Fridley) held in-depth hearings on the environmental review process of the first mine seeking permits, known as Polymet.  After extensive hearings, the committee finally took up SF2349 late Wednesday night.  After over 10 hours of hearings with detailed scientific analysis, emotional appeals from both sides, and some very spirited debate, the hearing reached its climax at around 9 p.m.

Unfortunately for the environmental community, these hard-fought hearings ended in the bill being withdrawn by the chief author due to lack of assurances that the bill would pass.  If one only focuses on this result and the circumstances of a single bill, it would certainly look to the casual observer like this whole effort regarding SF2349 was a meaningless sacrifice.  So this time a broader perspective may be helpful.

For example, if one only focuses on the senseless sacrifice of the 88% casualties the Minnesota 1st suffered in those few minutes on the second day of Gettysburg, you would lose the broader significance.  It is well established by historians that without the sacrifices of the Maine 20th on the far southern flank of the Union forces and the Minnesota 1st on Cemetery Ridge, the Battle of Gettysburg would have been a Union loss.  The charge of the Minnesota 1st bought only a few minutes, but they were precious minutes.  While the Minnesotans were holding off the advancing Confederates, Gen. Hancock was able to move Union reserves into good positions up on Cemetery Ridge, saving the high ground.

Without the Minnesotan’s sacrifice, Confederate forces would have split the forming Union lines requiring Union forces to fall back even closer to the nation’s capitol.  Because of the great sacrifice of the Minnesota 1st, Cemetery Ridge was held to become the central point of the greatest Union victory in the war on July 3rd in the famed failed Confederate attack known as Pickett’s Charge.

SF2349 may have been lost in legislative terms, but our objective is not to just pass bills.  Our objective is to use all of our resources to protect our lakes, rivers and streams along with our valuable outdoor resources such as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.  Passing bills is only one tool in this very important endeavor.  Although the bill failed, there were bright lights shown on the process with over 10 hours of intense hearings.  The mining companies now know there is a very engaged group of Minnesotans willing to sacrifice to protect our valuable resources.  These efforts help strengthen the resolve of the critical agencies charged with the protection of our environment and highlighted gaps in their environmental review process that now must be addressed.

It is disappointing to lose a bill as a lobbyist, but there’s much more to do in the mining area around regulatory actions, community organizing, public relations, and further legislative hearings.  It is good to see the Legislature taking their role of oversight of our state agencies seriously.  In addition to the hearings we received this week in the Senate, the House Environment Policy Committee will hold oversight hearings Thursday, March 18 on the non-ferrous mining financial assurance regulations, shining further light on the process.  Therefore, it is more important than ever to rededicate ourselves to this great cause of protecting our wild places from this potentially dangerous mining.

Additional News on Budget Issues at the Capitol:  I promise not to use any more sobering civil war analogies for the rest of the year in this little blog; this legislative session is sobering enough by itself.  The major reason for the downcast faces at the Legislature is the depth of the financial crisis we face, not only in the state but in our nation as a whole.  Minnesota is not alone in its struggle to balance its budget.  Washington State is planning on closing over 40 state parks, Connecticut moved to release many of its state prisoners early, and Arizona has sold its state capitol office buildings to investors for upfront cash and is now leasing the buildings back.

The forecast that the Minnesota Legislature uses to balance its budget was recently released, showing slight improvement in the state’s budget shortfall for this legislative budget.  Instead of a $1.2 billion budget deficit, we are now facing just under $1 billion.  This is still about 3% of the state’s discretionary general fund budget that must be corrected in the face of the fact that the Governor and the Republicans will not allow a tax increase.  Because there are no reserves left, the Legislature has no other option but to cut programs.  The process of adjusting the budget has begun in each of the different finance divisions this week.

Both the House and Senate finance divisions responsible for the DNR, PCA and BWSR have provided their initial recommendations.  Overall both the House and Senate recommendations have about $3 million more in cuts than the Governor proposed earlier.  The reason for this is that the Governor’s budget made recommendations based on some federal money that is hard to count on and the Legislature is being more realistic in the level of cuts necessary to balance the budget.  The Governor was also able to sustain smaller general fund cuts in the environment areas by raiding some of the dedicated accounts like the Game and Fish Fund in DNR and the Environment Fund at PCA.  The legislative committees did not raid dedicated funds, but as a result, need to find deeper cuts in the general fund areas they oversee.

Legislative recommendations for cuts in our major agencies are noted below in millions of dollars. 

House
DNR: $9.941 (4.7%)
PCA: $1.700 (9.1%)
BWSR: $2.029 (6.5%)

Senate
DNR: $13.271 (5.6%)
PCA: $1.602 (8.2%)
BWSR: $2.224 (7.2%)

As you can guess, these are very difficult actions for legislative committees.  The budget-cutting bills should be completed by the end of March and become part of the overall negotiations for the completion of the session.

The other major financial activity this session is the passage of the Omnibus Capital Investments Bill.  That legislation took a major step forward on Thursday of this week with the passage of the final conference committee report.  The Governor and the Legislature were not able to reach a final agreement, but the Legislature chose to send their latest draft with the hopes that the Governor would sign the bill and line-item veto those projects he did not like – which he has agreed to do as of this morning.  His last offer to the Legislature was a bonding bill in the neighborhood of $725 million.  The bill the Legislature sent to the Governor is just under $1 billion. 

This action is another one of those strange legislative things it’s hard to understand from the outside.  There is no way the Legislature could get the super majority of 60% necessary in each body to pass the legislative bonding bill if they reduce the package.  Too many members would have lost the projects they wanted.  Therefore, it was easier to keep the coalition of votes together with a higher dollar amount and let the Governor do the difficult work of paring the bill down after it passes.  The votes of the legislators would always remain so long as there was at least hope that their provision would survive line-item veto.  That way the Legislature gets the bill passed and the Governor gets a smaller bonding bill in the end.

The Legislature treated the environmental provisions in the bill very well by providing almost one quarter of the total dollar amount towards conservation and environment projects.  This is a little better than our historic average in the past.  They also maintained a pretty solid set of transit projects.  Now, we just wait to see what the Governor will line-item veto. 

Good news for the new Vermilion State Park.  The last version the Capital Investments bill did contain the language necessary to finalize the purchase from U.S. Steel of land on Lake Vermilion for the park.  That means that if the Governor exercises only his line-item veto authority and does not veto the whole bill, the new state park will have received its final needed approval. 

I apologize for the length of this report, it has been a busy week as the committees wrap up their budget bills and try to meet the first committee deadline.  They should continue to be very active through the rest of March.  So stay tuned.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 7:51 am by Tuma and is filed under Civic Engagement, Funding for the Environment, Great Lakes, Legislature, Sulfide mining, Transit and Transportation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.