House Expected to Approve Rep. Lee’s Measures to Protect Minnesota’s Environment and Public Health
SAINT PAUL, Minn. — Today, the Minnesota House is expected to approve the Environment and Natural Resources budget, which includes funding to protect, restore, and enhance Minnesota’s environment and public health. Assistant Majority Leader Fue Lee authored several included measures to fund lead and asthma testing, ban harmful insecticides, and prohibit trade of ivory and rhinoceros horn products.
Rep. Lee’s provision to improve environmentally-related health disparities would connect people to resources for blood lead testing, lead poisoning prevention, and asthma education. Last year, the state air monitor recorded dangerous levels of air pollution in the industrial zone near the Northern Metal facility in North Minneapolis.
“These measures are about environmental justice. The families that suffer the consequences of pollution and climate change are largely victims of wealthy, powerful corporate polluters,” said Rep. Fue Lee (DFL – Minneapolis). “That’s why I’m fighting for our families to receive the very best prevention, treatment and education.”
Rep. Lee also authored solutions to long-term pollution issues, including a provision to ban harmful insecticides in wildlife management areas and a provision to require corporate polluters to fund public health environmental projects that provide diagnostic, preventive, or health care treatment to populations exposed to the pollution they cause.
The budget also strengthens protections for wildlife by including Rep. Lee’s ban on ivory trade and a measure to increase from $2 to $16 the amount of money from each deer hunting license that is used for deer habitat improvement and deer management programs.
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