My last update covered Governor Walz’s supplemental budget request and the joint budget targets agreed to by the governor and Senate and House DFL leadership. (Both the supplemental budget request and the joint budget targets were released in the same week.) Since the joint budget targets were released, Senate and House agriculture committee chairs have been busy assembling the various finance bills for their committees of jurisdiction. We will start to see those bills over the next few weeks across several different committees.
Committees continue to hear bills, mostly on proposals that have a fiscal component. Last week, the House and Senate agriculture committees heard updates on high path avian influenza from the Board of Animal Health and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA).
The pace of committee work has been a little bit slower, and omnibus policy bills that made the policy bill deadline have started to move through the full House and Senate.
The Senate passed the omnibus agriculture policy bill on a vote of 53-14. The bill mostly includes technical revisions for MDA programs as well as updates to reporting damage from elk, an anonymous tipline for potential violates to the corporate farm law, and an increased floor of $20 million for grain purchased before requiring a full financial audit of grain buyers. It also would require a report and a convening of stakeholders around more transparent financial reporting of cooperatives.
The House Agriculture Committee did not move a separate omnibus policy bill, so we anticipate the Senate omnibus agriculture policy bill will be conferenced with the House once both bodies approve supplemental agriculture finance bills.
The Legislature will take a short recess in observance of the Eid holiday starting at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, April 9, through Thursday, April 11, at 12 p.m. We expect next week to be very full, with lots of committee activity and possibly longer floor sessions as both bodies work to clear omnibus policy bills.
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Categories: Minnesota, Government & Policy