Matt Doll, Minnesota Environmental Partnership
Last week, Pew Research published coverage of a large-scale national survey asking U.S. adults whether stricter environmental laws and regulations “are worth the cost” or “cost too many jobs and hurt the economy.” Amid recent headlines about environmental rollbacks, the survey showed that Americans aren’t closely divided when it comes to environmental protections – in fact, we’re mostly in favor.
60% of Americans surveyed said that strong environmental laws are worth the cost, while only 38% said the opposite. “Worth the cost” won majority support in 90% of the states, with only the low-population states of Idaho, Wyoming, West Virginia, and the Dakotas disagreeing. Large majorities of Americans agreed that the federal government is either doing enough or not enough to protect water, land, air, and climate, with only small minorities saying that it’s going too far. (The survey was conducted from 2023-2024, and opinions may have evolved during this year of federal rollbacks.)
Minnesota, however, was out in front of the pack. 71% of our state’s respondents agreed that stronger environmental protections are worth the cost, a higher percentage than any other state. Our vote in the 2024 election to renew constitutionally-guaranteed funding for Minnesota’s Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund passed with 77% support, illustrating just how much Minnesotans care about protecting and restoring our world-renowned lakes, rivers, forests, and communities.
These numbers should be top of mind for Minnesota Legislators as they negotiate the final budget agreement for their special session.
After they failed to pass a complete budget by the regular session’s end on Monday the 19th, Legislative leadership’s discussions have taken place almost entirely behind closed doors. If they don’t pass the rest of their budget by the end of this month, we’ll face a partial government shutdown, and the state will need to start sending layoff notices to state employees.
Not all environmental issues are still on the table – the Legacy Bill, which funds projects from Minnesota’s sales tax-supported Clean Water Fund, Outdoor Heritage Fund, Parks and Trails Fund, and Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, has already been passed and signed by the Governor.
MEP has been in touch with the leaders of key committees relating to the environment, and we understand that the Senate and the divided House caucuses have reached agreement on some bills, including the Environment omnibus budget bill, while some are still under discussion.
At the time of this writing, here’s a snapshot of some of the likely key environmental results of the special session:
- The newly-created Community Grants program of the Environment and Natural Resources Trust fund is likely safe after some legislators proposed to significantly cut its funding earlier in the session.
- Though they were introduced at several points in the session, rollbacks to rules on sulfate and reactive mine waste – a clear license for mining companies to pollute – have been successfully blocked.
- Minnesota will likely see at least some unfortunate industry-backed changes to the environmental permitting process, including restricting the ability of Minnesotans to petition for greater environmental review of major projects based on where they live.
- Funding for clean transportation, including public transit and bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, will see significant cuts.
- A House-proposed rollback of Minnesota’s Driving Down Emissions law, which requires MnDOT to consider and mitigate the climate impact of highway expansions, may or may not make it into the final budget bill.
- Most cutbacks to Minnesota’s clean energy programs, including net metering for private solar panel installations, have likely been blocked, but these issues are still in play for the special session. Read more from Fresh Energy.
We’re disappointed that Legislative leaders are relying so heavily on closed-door discussions for final negotiations on issues that will affect the lives of millions of Minnesotans and the millions of acres of land and water we call home. But we hope that they will at least keep in mind the voices of the many Minnesotans who have made their voices heard to their lawmakers at this critical time throughout the session – and to the 71% of us who think stronger environmental protections should be our priority.