Virtual File - Item

Text: May 30, 2017

The Honorable Michelle L. Fischbach
President of the Senate
Room 2113, Minnesota Senate Building
St. Paul, Minnesota 55155

Dear Madam President:

On the advice of my General Counsel, to ensure there are no legal challenges, I am
signing Chapter 94, Senate File 1456 rather than allowing it to become law without my
signature.

Senate File 1456 funds several of my budget priorities, including $20 million for
broadband development to drive economic development in Greater Minnesota. I appreciate
your modest increases in the Minnesota Investment Fund and Job Creation Fund, incentives
that help attract businesses to our state. Further, the $7 million in additional funding for
Vocational Rehabilitation Services is critical to ensuring that Minnesotans with disabilities
can find employment and live more independently. I also commend your decision to fund
wage theft prevention at $1 million and Homework Starts with Home at $2 million.

I support several legislative initiatives included in the bill, including funding for the
Helmets to Hardhats program which supports recruiting active duty military members and
veterans into registered apprenticeship programs. And the new Youth Skills Training
program has the potential to attract young people to high-demand, high-growth careers.

Despite these positive investments, I am deeply concerned that the bill cuts funding
for the 2016 equity grants. Minnesota has some of the worst racial and ethnic disparities in
the nation and we must work together to close these gaps, through education, job skills
training, and support for entrepreneurs, among other efforts. The future of our state depends
on all Minnesotans having the opportunity to succeed. I urge you to reconsider these cuts
during the next legislative session.

While the bill removes objectionable policy provisions including Voice-over-Internet
Protocol service deregulation, limitations on agency transfers, and requiring legislative
approval of certain proposed rules, I am disappointed that Senate File 1456 includes
controversial policy including shortening the amount of time a consumer has to redeem
property from a pawnbroker before it is forfeited, and preempting local governments from
passing ordinances regulating plastic bags. The bill also fails to include Internet privacy
provisions that would have required consumers to give express approval before internet
service providers could collect, distribute, sell, or share personally identifiable information
about a consumer. I hope you revisit this issue next session.

I noted in my previous veto letter on this topic that perhaps the most egregious policy
provisions in this bill focus on energy. I am still of that same opinion. In the same month
that Minnesota celebrates the tenth anniversary of its landmark bipartisan Next Generation
Energy Act, the Legislature passed a bill that moves our state backward in our hard-fought
progress on renewable energy and job creation. It includes policies that roll back incentives
that support Minnesota's solar industry, exempts some rural utilities from meeting energy
efficiency requirements through the Conservation Improvement Program (CIP), and prevents
municipal and cooperative utility customers from using the Public Utilities Commission
(PUC) to resolve disputes. It also extends the timeframe for Excelsior Energy's site and route
permits, which I have not supported in the past.

The bill also makes wholesale changes to the agreement reached in the 1990s that
allowed nuclear waste to be stored in Minnesota. This agreement created the Renewable
Development Fond (RDF), as well as mandates for energy production from renewable
sources, including biomass. This bill essentially rewrites that agreement by allowing Xcel
Energy and the Legislature to have direct control of the RDF, while significantly obligating
these funds over the next several years for non-renewable energy uses. The latter is
particularly concerning to me, because I sympathize with the concerns expressed by the
Prairie Island Indian Community that the state and the utility will be less motivated to find a
permanent storage solution for nuclear waste. These provisions effectively relieve the utility
from having to meet the biomass mandate required by the agreement, to the detriment of
much of Minnesota's timber industry and management of public and private forests. Because
this policy was hastily written and passed, we do not yet know the full impact these
provisions will have on the loggers,- mills, and truckers that had planned business decisions
on contracts intended to last for up to another 11 years. A meager effort to study the
economic impact on this industry, after the fact of passing these policy provisions, is
inadequate.

Sincerely,
Mark Dayton
Governor

cc: Senator Paul E. Gazelka, Senate Majority Leader
Senator Thomas M. Bakk, Senate Minority Leader
Senator Jeremy Miller, Minnesota Senate
Representative Kurt Daudt, Speaker of the House
Representative Melissa H01tman, House Minority Leader
Representative Pat Garofalo, House of Representatives
The Honorable Steve Simon, Secretary of State
Mr. Cal R. Ludeman, Secretary of the Senate
Mr. Patrick Murphy, Chief Clerk of the House of Representatives
Mr. Paul Marinac, Revisor of Statutes