During the 2024 Legislative Session, CURE was a voice for rural Minnesota, advocating for a clean energy future while striving to protect and preserve the Minnesota landscapes and communities we love. This was sometimes a lonely position to hold.
No other organization does what CURE does in rural Minnesota. But being a progressive rural advocate is at the heart of why CURE exists as an organization, and because of our membership, we know we are not alone. CURE staff need only chat with our neighbors across rural Minnesota to know why we are doing this work and why it is of the utmost urgency and importance. CURE and rural Minnesotans across the state know that more clean energy generation is vital, and we are the people who will live by these transmission lines and clean energy installations. Our rural communities can’t be sacrifice zones for a clean energy future, but we can be partners in an energy transformation that also helps our rural communities thrive.
That is a long way of saying that the 2024 Minnesota Legislative wasn’t just about a wins-loss tally for CURE. It was about being steadfast to CURE’s mission and values as we do the long and hard work of helping shepherd the rural energy transformation and livable future.
How did CURE’s Priorities fare during the 2024 Legislative Session?
Permitting Reform
Permitting Reform was a contentious issue throughout the entire Session. An early version of the bill was written by and for industry, with little thought given to the rural communities that will host clean energy infrastructure. CURE primarily played defense on this bill and successfully lobbied for several key provisions that were included in the bill’s final passage (Climate & Energy Omnibus, S.F. 4942). As a result, we ensured the protection of existing timelines for public comment and public hearings, the establishment of oversight guardrails for when the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) staff conducts environmental review, and guarded against polluting sources of energy being eligible for less stringent permitting processes. CURE also worked with bill authors to include language requiring all CO2 pipelines to undergo the most robust form of environmental review, the Environmental Impact Statement. In addition, CURE’s advocacy ensured that the bill included $1 million for a study considering the suitability of CO2 pipelines for Minnesota, including the environmental and human health impacts of carbon capture and transportation and the safety of CO2 pipelines.
Still, there is more work to be done. Despite CURE’s efforts, the Legislature allowed new natural gas plants to be exempt from more rigorous permitting and to draft their own environmental review documents. Most concerningly, the bill eliminated an existing law that required the PUC to consider local ordinances during the permitting process. On the surface, this change might appear to advance Minnesota’s climate goals by removing local regulations that could be seen as obstacles. However, by no longer requiring the PUC to consider local ordinances, the bill sends the signal to counties and municipalities that their voices and concerns don’t matter. Alienating rural communities instead of working with them threatens to slow down, not speed up, future clean energy development.
In future sessions, the Legislature should correct this misstep. A possible solution would be to provide funds, a framework, and technical assistance to help counties plan for future clean energy development to help ensure that local needs and concerns are addressed, reducing potential roadblocks and resistance.
Clean Transportation Standard
After participating in the state’s Clean Transportation Standard Working Group, CURE, along with several partners, issued a Minority Report explaining the issues both with the working group process and the Clean Transportation Standard (CTS) in general. When the CTS bill came in front of the legislature again this year, CURE raised these concerns, including the human and environmental health impacts of biofuels production, the likelihood for a CTS to incentivize CO2 pipelines, and the lost opportunity cost of investing in expanded biofuels as opposed to electrification and other climate-friendly transportation solutions. Although the CTS did not pass this year, we know that this will be a perennial issue at the legislature. CURE will continue to ask questions about a CTS’s intended and unintended consequences and who stands to benefit from its implementation.
Energy, Water, Waste & Rural Communities
CURE also advocated for legislation that uplifts and supports distributed clean energy generation, clean water, waste reduction, and stronger rural communities during Session.
Here are some key initiatives we pushed for:
Energy
- Establishment of a program to provide technical assistance and financial incentives (grants up to $20,000) for local units of government to adopt the SolarAPP+ software, which standardizes, automates and streamlines the review and permitting process for rooftop solar.
- Establishment of an interconnection docket at the PUC to improve the interconnection of distributed energy resources like rooftop solar to existing transmission. This also establishes an Interconnection Ombudsperson position at the PUC, whose job is to oversee interconnection disputes, review utility interconnection policies, and convene stakeholder groups.
- Allocation of $1.2 million for geothermal planning grants (up to $150,000 each) for local units of government to assess the feasibility and cost of constructing geothermal energy systems.
- A report was commissioned on the potential for grid-enhancing technologies to improve reliability, capacity, and resiliency.
- The Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Pollution Control Agency (PCA), and other state agencies are directed to conduct rulemaking around the permitting of helium and hydrogen mining and prohibiting the permitting of such projects in the meantime. CURE successfully advocated to remove provisions in this bill that would have directed the DNR to regulate carbon sequestration on state lands.
- Creating a Critical Materials Recovery Task Force—this is an important step in understanding how we can better recycle and use the critical minerals we’ve already extracted.
Water
- Update to the definition of “public waters” and the granting of $8 million from 2025-2032 for mapping to update the Public Waters Inventory.
- Creation of manure management grants for feedlots with less than 1,000 animal units and a nutrient management plan to implement a variety of techniques to enhance groundwater protection and reduce greenhouse gases associated with agriculture.
- APFAS Removal Report was commissioned to identify strategies and mechanisms to require companies manufacturing, using, or releasing PFAS to pay for the cost of providing clean drinking water to people with contaminated private/public water systems and to prevent PFAS from entering water in the first place.
Waste
- Update to state waste management goals and hierarchy for food waste
- Owners and operators of waste facilities are required to conduct a waste composition study
- Enactment of the Packaging Waste and Cost Reduction Act, which seeks to establish a statewide program for packaging and paper products that encourages producers of such products to redesign those products to reduce their environmental and human health impacts and to reduce the generation of waste through reduction, reuse, recycling, and composting.
Rural Communities
- Condemned trust land will be transferred back to the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. Legislation also directed that the sale of land within Indian Reservations must be offered first to the affected band.
- Establishment of the Resilient Community Assistance Program to assist local governments, Tribal governments, and other relevant local organizations in adapting to and developing community resilience impacts of climate change.
- Allocation of $24 million for rural emergency services in Greater Minnesota and the creation of a new Office of Emergency Medical Services.
