Democrats warn an environment funding bill the Republican-controlled Senate passed Thursday afternoon will loosen regulations and limit citizen participation in the review process. Minneapolis Senator Scott Dibble:
“If this bill were to pass into law, our water and our air would be more polluted…. This is not an environment bill — this is an anti-environment bill.”
Alexandria Republican Bill Ingebrigtsen responds:
“My district represents one-tenth of the lakes in the state of Minnesota — just my district. And if anyone in this room would come down here and think that I would allow industry to dump sewage into the water…”
Ingebrigtsen says government regulations have over-reached. His bill would give the legislature more control over D-N-R rule-making, and set up a “Mining Dashboard” to allow more public scrutiny of delays in issuing permits for mineral mining projects.
