Where There's Smoke...
John Tuma’s Capitol Update – April 2, 2010
"Fire!"
Slightly after 9 p.m. on March 1, 1881, when the Minnesota Senate was in one of those long and tedious end of session meetings, a shocked senator happened to look out of the main doors of the Senate chamber to see the grand staircase of the Capitol engulfed in flames. He quickly screeched out an alert and when the stunned Senate realized that their only route out of the Capitol was engulfed in an impassable wall of flames, pandemonium broke out.
Thanks to the quick thinking of Lieutenant Governor Charles Gilman, who was present in the chamber as a presiding officer that evening, no lives were lost. Gilman was a lumberman from St. Cloud and well acquainted with the nature of fires. He bellowed from the head of the chamber "Shut the doors. Shut the doors. Don't make a draft. Act like men." That action allowed the fire to die down enough on the staircase for the senators to hasten a quick charge down the staircase and out to safety.
Minnesota's first grand Capitol building was a total loss. Fortunately, all the elected officials, guests, and employees were able to narrowly escape the pursuing flames in the all wood edifice. The Minneapolis Tribune reported "Governor Pillsbury would be justified in making modest provisions for the replacement of the several dozen pairs of coattails which we regret to learn were burned off before the people's representatives could secure exit from the late lamented temple of law."
At about 4 p.m. on Monday, March 29, 2010, there was no fire at the grand granite Capitol building that was finished in 1905 to replace the temporary facility built after the fire of 1881. Nonetheless, based on the speed legislators were evacuating the Capitol one might have wondered if there was a fire. Instead it was spring break as the Legislature adjourned early on Monday in observance of Passover and Easter, and they will not return until Tuesday, April 6. Adding to the pace of their retreat were probably their last pieces of business which were approving the conference committee report for the first part of the budget fix and sending it on to the Governor, who did eventually sign it. Given the condition of the state's budget, adopting the $312 million in cuts to state programs was almost enough to send most legislators out of the building screaming.
With passage of the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment, the voters of Minnesota essentially purchased some fire insurance for many of our environmental programs. It has been clear to the Legislature that Minnesotans desire to enhance our long-term investments in our Great Outdoors. Therefore, for the most part our environment and conservation investments have been treated fairly in this very difficult economic crisis which is hampering our state budgets.
The $312 million of general fund cuts in HF1671 gets this Legislature about a third of the way to solving their billion-dollar budget shortfall this session. The bill contained all the state budget categories except for the two biggest: Health and Human Services and K-12 education. The last two thirds of the budget will be resolved with cuts to these major programs and with additional federal dollars that are still being calculated in Washington.
Only about 1 percent of the state's general fund budget goes toward our major environment and conservation programs at the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the Pollution Control Agency (PCA), Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR), and a few programs over at the Department of Agriculture. In an effort to honor the clear message of the voters in passing the constitutional amendment in 2008, the Legislature did not go after several of the dedicated accounts in our agencies and tried to maintain the general fund cuts at a similar level for other programs. The dedicated accounts in our agencies are supported by special revenues like your fishing license, garbage tax, permit fees, etc. Unfortunately, there were a few cracks in the preservation of these dedicated accounts which arose out of the conference committee and are worth noting.
The largest of these cracks in any environmental dedicated accounts occurred in a fund established to close public landfills. In order to reach a final agreement with the Governor's office, the Legislature approved a one-time transfer of $8 million from an investment account that has been put into place to address the environmental impacts of closing our state's landfills, and placed the money in the general fund to lessen the deficit. It's sort of like raiding your children's college fund to pay for an unexpected car repair. The Legislature did include language in the bill that would require them to pay back this raid, with interest, from the general fund when there are future needs within the closed landfill program. I would guess there have been several personal bankruptcies in our country that were paved with these types of good intentions to pay back raided accounts.
The Legislature also found about $3.2 million of other accounts that they directly raided without requiring them to be paid back. These are surpluses found in programs like stream bank protection and DNR's automotive fleet account. In addition to these raids on surplus accounts, the Legislature made slightly less than a 5 percent cut in the general fund appropriations to our agencies. Because our agencies do not depend heavily on the general fund, these reductions should not have significant negative impacts. When you take into account the overall budgets from all accounts, these cuts amount to about a 0.8 percent reduction for the DNR and about a 0.4 percent cut for the PCA. BWSR was hit the hardest of our agencies, having to absorb about a 2.5 percent reduction. It should be pointed out that these reductions are on top of the unallotments the Governor put in place last summer.
Another area of concern that arose out of the budgets for the environment was the reemergence of a property rights effort to stop our agencies from acquiring critical lands for habitat and environmental protections, and the proponents’ tactic of wrapping their position in the cloak of job creation. This attack on land acquisition came on a bill appropriating the portion of lottery proceeds that go to the environment that are appropriated through the Legislative Citizens Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR). The LCCMR is made up of both citizens and legislators who were charged with appropriating the $26 million produced from the environmental trust fund this year. They carefully identify emerging issues which need to be addressed to preserve our state’s Great Outdoors. Their final package has to be adopted by the Legislature.
The LCCMR recommendations were contained in HF2624 authored by Rep. Jean Wagenius (DFL-Minneapolis). When that bill reached the House floor for final consideration, an amendment was offered to severely hamper property acquisition. Rep. Tom Rukavina (DFL-Virginia) successfully offered an amendment to remove thousands of dollars for proposed land purchases and cut partial funding to projects like $363,900 for the DNR to obtain land for scientific and natural areas. He gave the money to park rehabilitation programs which he claimed would produce more immediate jobs. In this economy the jobs versus property protection is a challenging battle for the environmental community. Unfortunately, ignoring the long-term benefits of these protection dollars will have a severe negative impact on our state's economy which relies heavily on the benefits we reap from our natural resources.
This amendment has sent a warning shot almost akin to that holler of "fire" back in 1881 for the conservation and environmental community. We have been quickly organizing to make sure such an amendment is not successful in the Senate where the LCCMR bill has yet to receive its floor debate. Also, those concerned with the development of the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Constitutional Amendment funding are also heeding the warning of this property rights movement and their use of the jobs argument. The bill that would spend the sales tax receipts for conservation programs will be assembled after the Legislature returns from their Passover/Easter break. There has been a concerted effort to make sure programming to acquire critical pieces of property for the protection of habitat are not damaged by similar amendments.
Finally, the saddest news of the session for the conservation and environmental community is the recent retirement announcement of Sen. Dennis Frederickson (R-New Ulm), one of our great champions at the Capitol over the last 30 years; just about as bad as losing the State Capitol building back in 1881. It would take me another article to identify all the legislation Senator Frederickson was so critical in guiding through the process, not the least of which are the two above-mentioned, the LCCMR and the Constitutional Amendment.
To understand what a class act Sen. Frederickson is and what he means to environmental protection in Minnesota would take volumes, but to get a little glimpse, his quote in the New Ulm Journal says it best “. . . it is time to spend more time with my wife, Marj; fishing, hunting, canoeing the Minnesota River; and enjoying grandchildren's concerts, gymnastics, basketball and soccer games. I want to visit our beautiful state parks and trails and enjoy the outdoors." You will be greatly missed, my good friend.
*The above quotes and story of the 1881 State Capitol fire come from It Happened in Minnesota, by Darrell Ehrlick, Morris Book Publishing, LLC. 2008
