Environment Budget Bill Cuts Pollution Control, then Puts Polluters in Control

Thank you Mr. Chair and Members. Mark Ten Eyck representing the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. Thank you for this opportunity to testify.
 
MCEA opposes many of the policy provisions in this bill. To avoid repeating our previous testimony, we have a packet of written material for handout.
 
Today, I’ll start by saying: it’s not all bad. The Governor’s goal of a 25% improvement in water quality by 2025, and the related public process, is solid. Minnesotans expect clean, fishable, drinkable and swimmable waters. A 25% improvement to water quality would be a significant step in that direction.
 
Most all of the other provisions in the omnibus bill, however, weigh against us ever accomplishing that goal. 
 
Beginning with the budget cuts, many of them are extreme. Of particular note, the nearly 85% General Fund cut for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is too much — by a lot. Also, taking $22 million from the Clean Water Fund to implement the buffer law would roll back the Legislature’s 2015 commitment to appropriate this money from the General Fund base beginning in 2018.
 
On the policy side, MCEA’s concerns are in three areas.

First, this omnibus would cut the public out of the environmental decision-making process by

• Eliminating the Environmental Quality Board 
• Eliminating contested case hearings for permits to mine
• Eliminating environmental review for feedlots between 1000 and 2000 animal units
• Allowing pollution dischargers to do their own draft environmental reviews, which is very much like putting the fox in charge of building the henhouse, collecting the eggs, and cooking the omelette

Second, the omnibus would in many instances delay environmental decision-making— not streamline it. It would, for example:

• Encourage, in Art. 3, Sect. 8, long-running and very costly do-overs of agency decisions
• Assign new responsibilities for environmental review to DNR and PCA, then cut their budgets for getting that work done
• Delay full implementation of the buffer law for two years, even though implementation in most counties is running very strong

Third, the omnibus would circumvent the input of experts and scientists doing their jobs. For example, it would:

• Cut DNR’s scientific expertise out of the permit process for drawing down water levels in rare and endangered calcareous fens
• Allow the courts and legislature to substitute their judgment for that of agency scientists, increasing the uncertainty for everyone: businesses, local governments and the public
• Suspend recently adopted water quality standards, including the much needed river eutrophication standard

And then, there is the buffer law: MCEA urges you: Don’t Ditch It in this omnibus. Two points.

• First, the omnibus would erase from the map over 50% of the pre-2015 requirement for buffer on Minnesota watercourses.. That would be erasing about 48,000 miles of 50’ buffer by reducing them to  16.5 feet, a width that has little or no benefit for water quality or wildlife habitat. In acres, the reduction is about 200,000 acres.
• Second, the omnibus would eliminate all buffer law requirements except those funded 100% by state or federal taxpayers. This tips the established process upside down.  Other production businesses, real estate developers, municipalities and homeowners pay most, if not all, of the cost of controlling their pollution discharges. Agricultural businesses should do the same.

In short and in summary, the omnibus is a story of delays here, streamlining there — creating some expediency for pollution permit applicants, but sacrificing important and longstanding protections for public health and the environment.
 
Thank you for hearing MCEA’s testimony today.