On the very last day of the 2018 legislative session, at 4:35 in the afternoon, nine members of a conference committee met in the Capitol. Within 26 minutes, they approved an entirely new bill that packaged together $825 million in traditional bonding projects, trunk highway funds — and $45 million in projects to protect our air, water and land.
It also included a raid of the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund to pay for $98 million in infrastructure and bonding projects that didn't fit into the self-imposed $825 million general bonding bill target. In order to fund extra projects, while still sticking to their public target, legislators turned to another riskier and more expensive form of bonds not backed by the full faith and credit of the state: appropriation bonds.
No public testimony was taken.
In 1988, voters passed an amendment to Minnesota's Constitution dedicating some of the proceeds of the state lottery to the conservation of our state's habitat, water and natural resources. It expressed voters' desire for an additional, stable, pay-as-you-go source of funding for the innovation, research, protection and education projects needed to protect our natural resources — and ultimately ourselves — into the future. It has twice been extended with overwhelming voter support.
Over the last 30 years, the trust has funded over 2,000 projects that tackle issues critical to Minnesota's quality of life, including control of the common carp, protecting water quality and habitat, enhancing parks and trails, and advancements in our clean energy economy. Approximately $45 million a year has been directed to projects selected by a committee of citizens and legislators.
This year's raid will divert $7.84 million — or nearly one-eighth — of the available trust funds each year for the next 20 years. Not to fund innovation or resource protections that hold promise for the future — but to pay for a single year's worth of the bread-and-butter work of government.
Even worse, the raid uses a financing mechanism (appropriation bonds) with a higher interest rate than normal bonds. These projects are estimated to incur $66 million in interest — $35 million more than with traditional bonds.
The bill didn't reappear until the last hour of the session, when it quickly passed. In the midst of voting on thousands of pages of other legislation, many legislators didn't know — and couldn't know — what was in this bill or have time to weigh its implications or insist on changes. Many reluctantly voted yes, not wanting to scrap a bonding bill that funded important projects across the state.
