Dear neighbors,
Yesterday, we were able to reach an agreement on the environment and natural resources budget! While reaching a compromise required some give and take, there’s a lot of good things in this budget.
The budget has some measures that originated in the House and others from the Senate. It also contains a plan for revenue from the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund. This plan is based on recommendations from the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR), a bipartisan panel of Minnesotans that I’m proud to serve on.
Photo Credit: John Kaul
On Monday, I had to borrow a tie in order to get into the Senate building to meet with the co-chair of the conference committee.
Last week, I shared some information about the first bipartisan compromise that my colleagues and I achieved in the Environment and Natural Resources Conference Committee in an e-update (available here). We made more progress earlier this week! The consensus we reached addresses long-term environmental issues like chronic wasting disease, protects public health, restores Minnesota’s natural resources, and provides greater access to the outdoors. MinnPost published a piece about some of these achievements. You can read it here.
Yesterday, Governor Walz and leaders from the House and Senate helped provide a framework for our final negotiations. The details of that agreement are available here and in the photo below.
If you’d like to learn more about the environment and natural resources budget, a spreadsheet of its contents is available here. A copy of the bill will be available later today and can be found here. You can also tune in tonight at 9 p.m. for an informational public hearing. Live video and audio will be available here and here.
Please stay tuned for more updates on this legislation and other areas of the budget.
Sincerely,
Rick Hansen
State Representative