Dear Friends and Neighbors,
Spring has finally come! The warm weather is welcome but also bringing new challenges. In addition to the usual spring potholes, many families are struggling with flooded basements and collapsed roofs. I hope you and your family are making the transition without too many problems!
Disaster Relief
I was glad to join my colleagues in supporting this proposal to provide immediate emergency loans to farmers impacted by roof collapses. The bill passed the House unanimously and is on its way to Governor Walz.
Farmers can use Disaster Recovery Loans for can be used to: clean up, repair, or replace farm structures and septic and water systems, as well as replace seed, other crop inputs, feed, and livestock; to purchase watering systems, irrigation systems, and other drought mitigation systems and practices when drought is the cause of the purchase; to restore farmland; or to replace flocks, make building improvements, or cover the loss of revenue when the replacement, improvements, or loss of revenue is due to the confirmed presence of the highly pathogenic avian influenza in a commercial poultry or game flock located in Minnesota.
It was great to see my colleagues come together to get this important piece of legislation passed to help farmers across our state. I was also pleased to see this program will provide low-interest loans, which will be repaid to the state and I think is a good model. You can watch a quick video of some of the speeches from the debate. There really is bipartisan work that gets done here!
Gov. Walz's 100% Clean Energy Bill
On Tuesday morning, the Energy and Climate committee heard Governor Walz's 100% Clean Energy Bill (HF1956). The bill mandates that 100 percent of the state's electricity be produced from "clean" energy sources by 2050. The bill specifically excludes nuclear power from the mix.
It will increase the prices Minnesota consumers pay for electricity, which are already above the national average and will decrease the reliability of the regional electrical grid, especially during times of extreme weather. This winter some areas of our state, not far from our district, lost power due to the extreme cold. If the current power mix couldn't keep up, it seems unlikely that complete reliance on "clean" energy would provide enough stable power to meet demand, particularly in peak times.
During the bill hearing, Tim Sullivan from Wright-Hennepin Cooperative Electric Association stated:
"But, given available technology, renewables penetration above 50 percent threatens the grid because the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine. There’s no better example of this than the polar vortex just last month. During the worst of it, there was almost no wind in the upper Midwest. Even if the wind were blowing, wind turbines shut down at 21 below. On Wright-Hennepin’s own utility-scale solar array, available capacity in February was just 1.8 percent!"
Renewable energy is an important part of our energy portfolio and, as storage and other technologies improve, I would expect and support greater use of renewable sources to meet our needs. But this transition must be done as capacity builds, not by fiat. These mandates will drive up costs and threaten the reliability of our energy grid especially during polar vortexes and heat waves. We need an 'all-of-the-above' strategy that ensures energy bills are affordable and our energy grid is reliable.
Reinsurance Fails to Come to House Floor
This week, the Minnesota Senate passed their bill to extend reinsurance for three years. The governor's own agency, Minnesota Management and Budget (MMB), has released two separate fiscal notes for SF761 which confirm that reinsurance would "reduce premiums in the individual market in plan years 2020-2022," but the House version of the bill remains stalled in committee.
Proposals put forward by the Democrats will not reduce premium costs, and actually cost the state more than simply extending the reinsurance program, which has proven to lower costs and stabilize the individual market. Reinsurance delivered for Minnesotans after it was passed last biennium and every indication shows it would again. It is simply a good, bipartisan idea and we should pass it immediately.
CCAP Fraud Report
This week the Office of the Legislative Auditor released their report on fraud in the Minnesota daycare program known as CCAP. There were two key takeaways from the report: first, there is widespread agreement that there is a substantial amount of fraud in the CCAP program; and second, we need to take action this session to improve program integrity, and put systems in place to catch and eliminate fraud.
Fraud and waste in our public programs is unacceptable, and it's clear that the Department of Human Services (DHS) has not done enough to stop the fraudulent activity from happening. House Republicans have several proposals that would improve program integrity for CCAP and other programs under DHS.
On top of the waste of taxpayer money, these programs exist to help the truly needed and when fraud takes place, it's those people who need it most who are harmed.
Rep. Robbins joined House & Senate Republicans as they held a press conference about the CCAP Fraud Report
Things to Know
Serving on the Judiciary and Civil Law Committee, I learned that there are several free resources for legal assistance available for people in our state. Legal Aid provides free legal help for low-income people and those with civil law problems, including custody, child support, eviction, debt, work or senior issue.
If you have legal questions, check out:
Photos from the Week
A few photos from some of the constituent meetings I had this week! Meeting with people from our district is always the highlight of my week!
Please Contact Me
Many of you have already been in touch to discuss your thoughts on the issues that matter most to you. Thank you for sharing your ideas! Please continue to contact me to discuss any legislation put before the House or any other matters to which I can be of assistance. You can set up a time to visit me at the Capitol by calling me at 651-296-7806 or by email at rep.kristin.robbins@house.mn. My office is located on the second floor of the State Office Building in room 225.
I hope you all have a fun weekend!
Kristin