Please Call your legislators, ask them to vote no on these bills!

Energy Rollbacks

Minnesota’s Senate Energy, Utilities, Environment and Climate Committee passed a budget and policy omnibus bill on April 9, 2025 with several policy rollbacks that favor industry – like big tech data centers or utilities – over programs and policies that help regular Minnesotans by protecting the environment or helping them save money while they move to clean energy.

SF 2393 includes several bad pieces of policy:

• Giving large data centers exceptions to Minnesota environmental laws – without any guardrails to ensure they are sited in industrial locations, protect water resources, or use renewable energy. (See Senator Dibble’s attempt to provide a 1500 foot set-back from residential areas here. See Senator McEwen’s testimony here.)
• Sunsetting Minnesota’s community solar garden program in 2028. (See Senator Xiong’s attempt to remove this provision here.)
• Weakening net-metering laws to reduce the financial benefit for those who live outside of Investor Owned Utilities (like Xcel) are able to realize from any extra electricity they produce and put back into the grid.
• Explicitly stating that B100 (biodiesel) qualifies as carbon free even though it emits almost as much carbon when it is burned as petroleum diesel.
• Allowing any size hydro project, regardless of when it was built, to qualify as an “eligible energy technology” – a move which further diminishes previously negotiated assurances designed to protect against new hydro projects that are detrimental to rivers, land and ecosystems. See this summary of recent legislative history.
• Eliminating the Renewable Development Account (RDA) – an account that receives funds from Xcel Energy based on the number of casks of nuclear waste it stores at Prairie Island. Since 1994, the account (initially called the Renewable Development Fund) has invested millions in renewable energy projects like Solar on Schools, the Prairie Island Net Zero Project, and solar at Blaine’s National Sports Center. (See Senator Green presenting this amendment here.)

Now, not every harmful amendment was passed. For this we are grateful. You can see Senator Gruenhagen’s attempt to exclude Rural Electric Cooperatives and Municipal Utilities from the 100% Carbon Free Standard here.   We appreciate that Chair Frentz did not support this amendment. See his response here. (And if you’d like more from Senator Gruenhagen about his views on the myth of climate change, see the bottom of this blog.)

However, for the most part, provisions in this bill take steps to consolidate power and economic benefit with industry while side-stepping environmental considerations. 

Call # 1: Please call, and then email, your State Senator and ask them to please Vote NO on SF 2393. Click here to see the action alert.

This Energy Omnibus bill is now on its way to the Senate Finance Committee and may make other committee stops before getting to the Senate floor. Every Minnesota State Senator will have a voice on whether this bill passes or not. Please call today! 

Now is not a time for giveaways to billionaire tech companies.

Now is not the time to abandon our commitments to people who invested in their own energy and community resilience by installing solar.  

Now is not the time for incrementalism, or to doubledown on energy sources that spew toxic particle pollution and greenhouse gases that cause the climate crisis.

Please tell your Senator to stand for strong climate policy by voting No on SF 2393.

Post Script: Wondering whether climate denial is still active at the Minnesota legislature?

Climate denial is still voiced on the committee, but it receives responses. There is an interesting exchange about the climate denial “science” Senator Gruenhagen supports that weaves through the hearing beginning here, with him later extolling the virtues of clean coal here. Yet, these statements are deftly and respectfully replied to at various moments with the following with comments like these 

from Senator Frentz:, here:

“I think I’m persuaded by the evidence I’ve seen, and some of it on the internet, that it is the industrial age in the last 170 years and the carbon we put in the air that acts as a blanket warming the planet a couple degrees, and like a baby, a couple degrees makes a difference and a couple more from here we might have a problem.”‘

from Senator Dibble, here:

“The fact of the matter is there is no such thing as clean coal. That is the myth and the fallacy.”

from Senator McEwen:

Transportation Rollbacks

On April 11, the House Transportation Committee passed its omnibus budget (and policy!) bill, HF 2438. MNIPL testified to two sets of concerns.

First, the cuts to transit funding:

• Greater Minnesota Transit cuts: $12 million each biennium, 2026/27 and 2028/29;
• Metro Transit cuts: $40 million in 2026/27, and $64 million cut in 2028/29
• Metro Mobility cuts: no change in 2026/27, but a $27 million cut in 2028/29. 

We oppose these cuts because transit gives people of all ages options for living independently when they can’t or don’t wish to drive.

Owning a car is a commitment of significant financial resources and that can turn into a commitment of mental resources. Robust, reliable, convenient transit systems – whether they are in the metro or in Greater Minnesota – helps people afford their lives. Transit allows people to focus their money, time and energy on other important priorities.

Second, the rollback of groundbreaking climate policy: 

In 2023, the legislature passed a law that requires the Department of Transportation to adhere to both greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and vehicle miles traveled (VMT) reduction targets as they are planning transportation projects.This important “Climate Impact of Highways” Law was groundbreaking for Minnesota. It basically said: develop plans that meet your goals. The law went into effect this past February.

Though the Department did not seek a change and did not indicate any problem complying with the law, Republicans sought to have the law delayed. Despite House leadership saying there would be no policy changes passed this year, an amendment to remove this provision died after a split vote (8 – 8) along party lines. The rollback to planning for GHG and VMT reductions remains in the Transportation omnibus bill.

Originally authored by Representative Larry Kraft and then-Senator Kelly Morrison, this law is still essential to Minnesota’s work to address our emissions. Transportation emissions cannot be addressed with electrification alone.  We need the law that we passed in 2023. We cannot afford delay. 

Call # 2: Please call, and then email, your State Representative and ask them to please Vote NO on HF 2438. Click here to see the action alert.