Minnesota Corn Growers Association
By Amanda Bilek, senior public policy director for the Minnesota Corn Growers Association
Tuesday, the Minnesota Legislature convened for its 92nd Legislative Session. As with many other things in the past year, the Minnesota Legislative Session will not be the same as past sessions.
The House of Representatives plans to conduct all business (committee hearings, floor sessions and individual meetings) mostly remote. Floor sessions will have limited attendance by members with most members voting remotely.
The Senate will conduct business with a bit of a hybrid approach. Committee meetings can be attended in-person by members, and there will be a remote option for Senators and potential testifiers. All activity of the legislature will mostly be streamed, and access to the capitol grounds and office buildings is mostly closed to the public, unless there are changes to capitol operations later in session. Even with these different dynamics, the Minnesota Corn Growers Association (MCGA) will be advocating for important priorities on behalf of Minnesota’s corn farmers.
Following the 2020 election, Democrats maintain the majority in the MN House of Representatives with 70 members, and 64 Republican members. Caucus leadership is unchanged from last session with Rep. Melissa Hortman (Brooklyn Park) leading the Democratic caucus and Rep. Kurt Daudt (Crown) leading the Republican caucus.
In the Senate, Republicans maintained their majority with 34 members, and Senate Democrats have 31 members. The remaining two members of the chamber, Senators Bakk (Cook) and Tomassoni (Chisholm) formed an Independent caucus after the November election making the Senate make-up for the 92nd Session 34-31-2, setting up very interesting dynamics for the upcoming session.
Minnesota legislators enter the 92nd Session with full plates and the challenge of accomplishing important work in a mostly virtual environment. In addition to continuing to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and necessary economic recovery, the major work of the session will be passing a new state budget for the next two years, referred to as a biennium. A November forecast from Minnesota Management and Budget projected a $1.3 billion budget deficit, and there will be an updated projection in February that will be used to assemble the budget.
Last year at MN Ag Expo, MCGA launched the Better Fuel Initiative, which aims to build a future of better transportation fuels for all Minnesotans. Our top legislative priority for the 2021 session is to increase the existing biofuel standard of 10 percent to 15 percent biofuel for the majority of gasoline sold in Minnesota. As corn growers, we know that increasing biofuel use in our transportation fuel provides consumer’s higher octane, lower costs and reduced tailpipe emissions, in addition to supporting biofuel producers in rural communities.
Last session, MCGA worked with legislators to introduce a bill and move it forward, and we will be back working on it again this session. The 15-percent biofuel standard, or statewide E15, also has the support in a set of recommendations from a diverse group of stakeholders that made up the Governor’s Council on Biofuels. The final report agreed that moving from a 10 to 15-percent ethanol minimum is a near-term policy priority for Minnesota to make progress towards Minnesota’s petroleum replacement goal of 25 percent by 2030.
Other top priorities this session include enacting buffer property tax relief for farmers. With the passage of the buffer law in 2015, Minnesota corn farmers have invested considerable time and money to bring their farms into compliance. One issue remains with the law and that is the need to eliminate the financial penalty of continuing to impose property taxes at the highest rates on farm land that is removed from income-producing crop production when converted to conservation buffers. MCGA supports enactment of a buffer property tax exemption correcting this issue.
MCGA will also be focused on protecting tax policy gains from recent years that provided much-needed economic relief to farmers. The Ag2School Tax Credit provides farmers important property tax relief attributable to school bonding projects, with a phased tax credit increase starting in 2019. MCGA will need to ensure the phased increase is accounted for in the next budget for the State of Minnesota. Minnesota also fully conformed to federal tax law on Section 179 capital equipment and expensing during a 2020 special session. Minnesota tax law will continue to be in conformity with federal law as long as no new changes are enacted during the next budget period.
Next week’s legislative update will dive into the federal priorities as activity picks up in Washington, so be sure to check back.
Be sure to follow the MCGA blog and its social channels (Facebook, Twitter) for updates. You can also follow me on Twitter (@AjBilek).