Legislative experts on the highs, lows and dysfunction of MN’s 2025 Legislative Session
By Sarah Horner, MCEA Communications Director
Legislative experts on the highs, lows and dysfunction of MN’s 2025 Legislative Session
MCEA hosted a webinar May 28th to break down everything that did and didn’t happen during Minnesota’s Legislative session, as well as what might still be to come in a TBD special session. MCEA Chief Strategy Officer Aaron Klemz moderated the conversation between MCEA’s Legislative Director Ben Olson and guest panelist, Sarah Mooradian, government relations and policy director at CURE. Below are some of the top takeaways from their discussion.
In a word
When asked to describe the past legislative session in one word, Mooradian chose “dysfunctional” and Olson chose “tied” to describe the dynamic the split House and Senate created for legislators. It resulted in one of the more unproductive sessions Olson said he’s witnessed in his 10 plus years working as a lobbyist. Of the 6,600 and some bills introduced this session, as of the publishing of this newsletter only 39 had been presented to Governor Walz.
Special Session?
As of the recording of the webinar, legislators were over a week and a half into the limbo-land that is the time between when session officially ended May 19th and before a special session is called to finish up all the work that didn’t get done.
The standard rules for governing don’t apply during this time, with many legislative working groups choosing to conduct unfinished business behind closed doors and away from public scrutiny, Mooradian said.
Only the Governor has the authority to call a special session, and he won’t do it until he’s confident legislators have agreements on outstanding budget issues. Right now, that seems likely to happen in the first week of June.
The data center dilemma
With more than ten hyper-scale data centers proposed throughout Minnesota, data centers reigned supreme this session.
MCEA, CURE and other allies pushed legislators to pass policies that would protect Minnesota from the significant burden the mega facilities would have on our state’s energy and water. While our concerns were no doubt heard, much of the debate at the Capitol centered instead on whether to give tax breaks to the billionaire companies behind data centers so proposed host communities could reap the speculative economic benefits that come with, like construction jobs and added tax base.
By the end of session, no bills to address data centers had been passed. It remains to be seen what a special session will bring.
“Minnesota has a lot of work to do if we don’t want to be stuck with a framework that data center developers and the proponents want, instead of one that has been built by and for Minnesota with our unique resources in mind,” Mooradian said.
The wide-ranging implications for AI, which is pushing the demand for hyper-scale data centers nationally, should also be a part of our state’s calculus, Olson noted.
“That fact that Minnesotans are being asked to donate our fresh water to help build machines that could essentially be used to monitor us and eliminate our right to privacy should be really concerning regardless of where you are on the political spectrum.”
Celebrating what didn’t get done
The divided chamber and national political atmosphere created conditions for some to try and weaken some of Minnesota’s signature environmental and climate legislation, namely our 100 percent carbon free energy law and our PFAS ban, known as Amara’s Law.
Special interest groups pushed hard for industry carve-outs in both laws this session, such as exempting some cookware products from needing to comply with Amara’s Law and the biomass industry seeking an exclusion from 100 percent. MCEA, CURE and our other allies pushed back.
As of the publishing of this newsletter, no industry carve-outs had passed into law. That said, some industries did manage to achieve delays in when they will have to comply with the laws. This was preferable to exempting any products or industries from having to comply with “Amara’s Law” permanently.
Environmental review took a hit
The mining industry was also aggressive this session with laser focus on reducing the rigor of Minnesota’s environmental review process to make it easier and faster to unearth our minerals.
We managed to prevent some of the more egregious tactics from advancing, such as the one where some legislators attempted to rollback Minnesota’s reactive mine waste rule and wild rice sulfate rule by sneakily attaching it to a bill to fund unemployment benefits for laid off mine workers.
Our environmental review process did take a hit though. The environment budget bill posted Thursday changed the geographic location of where citizens need to live in order to successfully petition for environmental review of a project that doesn’t automatically trigger one. State law currently requires 100 signatures from residents anywhere in the state. Now those signatures will need to come from people who live in or adjacent to the county where the project is proposed.
Webinar moderator and MCEA Chief Strategy Officer Aaron Klemz put the impact into perspective.
“If we’re talking about a project in Hennepin County, that’s no big deal at all, but if it’s in a really small county with 3 or 4,000 residents, 100 signatures can be a very difficult burden to overcome. And quite honestly … pollution doesn’t know county boundaries when you are talking about air or water pollution.”
Ranked advice on how to optimize public engagement
Both panelists and Klemz agreed that taking the time to tell your elected representatives what you think about the issues they’re voting on or should be voting on is critical. In order of impact, they said arranging an in-person meeting is best followed by a phone call and then an email or participating in an online Call to Action.
Doing something, even the lowest hanging fruit, is better than doing nothing, they said.
Conclusion
The above is just a portion of a wide-ranging and fascinating conversation our panelists had about what happened this session and what might still be coming as we stare down a special session.
Listen to the full webinar to hear how the DC dynamic is impacting local politics, what environmental issues our panelists think are most often overlooked in Minnesota and more. And as always, thank you to all of you who took action this session to help protect our water, air, climate and communities.