Energy omnibus bill grows in House Ways and Means Committee

Considering that one of the chief responsibilities of the House Energy Finance and Policy Committee is to create legislation that will keep your lights on, it’s appropriate that the committee has produced a “lights-on” bill for its omnibus.

At least that’s the state of the bill in its current form, after HF2442 was replaced by a delete-all amendment in the House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday then laid over for future consideration.

A vehicle bill that reached that committee with a single appropriation was replaced by one with $30.69 million in appropriations to the Department of Commerce for the 2026-27 biennium, although the largest total on the bill’s spreadsheet is $567.86 million in federal funds for weatherization and the low-income home energy assistance program.

“It’s a lights-on bill that will just be providing base funding to the Department of Commerce division of energy resources,” said Rep. Patty Acomb (DFL-Minnetonka), the bill sponsor.

That division would receive $28.49 million in General Fund appropriations in the next biennium, including:

• $11.99 million for operations;
• $6.4 million for pre-weatherization and workforce training;
• $4.8 million for permitting reform and regulatory advocacy;
• $1.92 million for changes in the community solar garden program; and
• $1 million for clean energy resource teams.

The bill would also appropriate $22.95 million to the Public Utilities Commission, mostly for operations, and allocate $2.2 million to the Petroleum Tank Release Compensation Board from the petroleum tank fund.

A bone of contention throughout the session in the House Energy Finance and Policy Committee has been a difference in philosophy between the committee co-chairs about use of the Renewable Development Account, a special state-administered fund designed to support renewable energy projects.

Xcel Energy pays into the account for being able to store nuclear waste at its Prairie Island and Monticello nuclear power plants, the size of payments based upon how many dry casks are currently in use. Money from the fund is typically spent only on projects located within Xcel Energy’s electric service territory.

In the current biennium, the account has been used to fund several programs related to renewable energy, including the Solar for Schools program, an electric vehicle rebate program, and distributed energy resource system upgrades.

But the Republican co-chair, Rep. Chris Swedzinski (R-Ghent), sponsors a bill this session that would eliminate the fund. That was clearly at odds with the goals of the other co-chair, Acomb, who has sponsored several bills this decade that create programs funded by the Renewable Development Account.

While the account has a current balance of $1.66 million that’s projected to grow to $49.17 million in the next biennium, the delete-all amendment for HF2442 would allocate only $600,000 of it, with $400,000 going to a University of St. Thomas Center for Microgrid Research and $200,000 going to administration of the Made in Minnesota solar energy production incentive program, which would receive $9 million for incentive payments during the biennium.

While Swedzinski wasn’t present for Thursday’s House Ways and Means Committee meeting, that committee’s co-chair, Rep. Paul Torkelson (R-Hanska), spoke on his behalf.

“The chair is correct that this is a lights-on bill,” he said. “There were a number of points, as I understand it, that were negotiated, but resolution was unable to be reached. And so we have before us a very simple bill that just kind of keeps things rolling as we head toward conference committee with the other body.”