Spring Waxing Flower Moon
“God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.” Thomas Jefferson
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Green Jobs: As reported yesterday, the Green Jobs legislation (part of the Federal Stimulus bill) will go to conference committee, perhaps as soon as the next couple of days. Its next stop after that is Governor Pawlenty’s desk.
We have one message for him: Sign It!
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Sensible Communities: As a stand alone bill, Sensible Communities has been dead for a few weeks. Four components of it live on in various omnibus bills: vehicle miles reduction goal, a study by the University of Minnesota on how to reduce vehicle miles, the elimination of school siting requirements and the addition of wetland conservation to environmental reviews required for land use and development planning.
It is possible than one or all of these might pass in their various bills. The one deemed most likely to become law at this point eliminates acreage requirements for school sitings. This would allow new schools to locate more toward the center of population densities rather than on their fringes encouraging more compact growth.
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Nuclear Moratorium Repeal: This has still not come up in the House though new information suggests today might be the day. A new wrinkle is the possibility of an amendment that would link lifting of the moratorium to development of a permanent depository for nuclear waste. This might encourage fence sitters to vote yes in the belief that the long road to such a depository would not mean lifting the ban for quite awhile. The problem is that another session of the legislature could then eliminate the permanent depository language and therefore repeal the moratorium.
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Bill Making Legal Challenges by Non-Profits much more difficult (HF1557): I mentioned this legislation on the 16th of April. In its original form it would have hampered lawsuits by organizations like the Sierra Club by imposing potential financial penalities, even if our suits were successful. This legislation as a whole is dead, but its author, prominent Range DFL’er, Tom Bakk, has changed tactics. He will now try to insert language that reduces the length of time in which a legal challenge can be raised from 6 years to 60 days. This would amount to the same onerous restriction since 60 days is not enough time for most non-profits to evaluate a situation, raise money if necessary, assemble a legal team and file suit.