We are in our second week at the State Capitol and three bills that rollback protections for our air and water have already passed out of the Senate and House Environment committees. Community leaders testified in opposition, including the executive director of the Minnesota Environmental Partnership.  We’ll keep an eye on these bills.  We expect to see more proposals like this.

But thanks to your help, we had a minor victory late last week!  (more…)

From MEP member group, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy

MPCA files report on permitting efficiency

House File 1, passed in 2011, required MPCA to set a goal of issuing permits within 150 days. MPCA received over 2500 permit applications in the nine-month period between March 4, 2011 (when House File 1 took effect) and December 31. In that time, the agency processed 99% of priority permits within 150 days. These priority permits required construction or significant modification of the facility in question – the types of action that can create jobs. The facilities receiving these 1,632 permits will help grow Minnesota’s economy without delay by MPCA.

Among all permit applications, including the more routine renewals, the agency took longer than 150 days with only 10% of permit applications. For most permits that took longer, there was a good reason: the agency was waiting for info from permittees, there was a significant public engagement process, federal or state policies changed, or the government was shut down. Read the permitting efficiency report here.

Ellen Anderson’s views are clearly in line with those of Minnesotans. An overwhelming majority of Minnesotans support increasing use of clean energy like wind and solar to meet our state’s energy needs.

Anderson’s credible work at the PUC supported jobs here in Minnesota. The University of Massachusetts’ Political Economy Research Institute found that $1 million invested in solar energy creates 14 jobs, while that same investment in fossil fuels creates only five jobs. Clean energy investments today mean solid jobs, and saving money and energy for our children and grandchildren.

Our elected leaders need to move beyond partisan politics and realize that Minnesota voters’ clear support of clean, renewable energy is not extreme – it’s mainstream.

From Patience Caso, MEP campaign director, and Eric Bergstrom, legislative and campaign outreach

Welcome to the 2012 legislative session! You care about Minnesota’s Great Outdoors and you believe in making and safeguarding investments for future generations. Your voice is critical to protecting and defending our environmental policy foundation — your elected officials need to hear from you.

This year, we’re counting on you to join the members of the Minnesota Environmental Partnership and advocate for: (more…)

photo by Sakarri on Flickr

Tomorrow, the Minnesota House Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Policy and Finance Committee will hold a hearing regarding HF 1856. This bill concerns the hunting and trapping of wolves in Minnesota, an issue that the Sierra Club North Star Chapter has been closely and carefully monitoring.

Now that the species has recently been delisted, the state of Minnesota must ensure that the stability of the wolf population does not fall victim to other interests. An initiation of a hunting season immediately following the wolf’s removal from threatened status raises serious concerns. Initially, a 5 year waiting period was called for, after delisting, before a hunting season would be opened. This waiting period was eliminated by legislation passed last year.

It is thanks, in part, to Sierra Club North Star Chapter’s work to protect the wolf under the Endangered Species Act for the past three decades that the Great Lakes Wolf population, which includes Minnesota, has made steps toward recovery. This should be celebrated. (more…)

Since being signed into law on Oct. 18, 1972, the federal Clean Water Act has helped Minnesota and the rest of our nation limit and clean up pollution in our lakes, rivers and streams.

(For an easy-to-understand summary of the landmark Clean Water Act and how it affects Minnesota, see Minnesota’s impaired waters 101, written by Friends of the Mississippi River, an MEP member organization.)

Unfortunately, many leaders in Minnesota proved unfriendly to our water during the past legislative session.* (more…)

So what happened this past legislative session? Here’s our brief overview:

State Budget

Defending traditional sources of funding for our Great Outdoors was a significant part of MEP’s work at the Capitol this year. (more…)

The new compromise environment budget bill is an improvement over the budget-gutting bill originally put forth by the legislature and later vetoed by the governor, but even in this improved bill, our concerns remain:

Disproportionate cuts:

Although we are grateful that overall state general fund spending has increased for our Great Outdoors compared to the legislature’s proposals, funding to protect our lakes, rivers, streams, habitat and parks is still severely cut. (more…)

While Minnesota’s leaders struggle to reach a budget solution, we must continue to let our legislators and the governor know that the budget must be fair and balanced — and protect the things Minnesotans value, including our Great Outdoors.

Earlier in the 2011 regular session, our legislators supported many provisions that threatened Minnesota’s land, air and water. Specifically, the environmental budget bill passed by the legislature made dramatic cuts to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and the Department of Natural Resources that would have undercut our state support for our outdoors and health, including: (more…)

Written by Ben Hellerstein, Sierra Club Legislative Intern

Concerned park-goers gather at the Rally for our State Parks hosted by the Sierra Club and environmental partner groups

We’re well into the second week of the Minnesota state government shutdown. Closing down many of the functions of state government for a few weeks might seem like a great way to save money, especially since budget negotiators still need to close a several-billion-dollar gap between state spending and revenues for the next biennium. In reality, the shutdown will cost the state tens of millions of dollars in additional expenses and lost revenues, like the $52 million a month that the laid-off tax auditors in the Department of Revenue would ordinarily bring in. (more…)