Today marks the end of week seven of Minnesota’s legislative session. The Senate has wasted no time, with more than 2,000 bills introduced already. The House also continues to move along, with more than 1,600 bills introduced so far.
One of those bills caught a lot of attention in the House Energy Finance and Policy Committee.
House File (HF) 845, brought by Rep. Baker, modifies Minnesota’s current net metering law to decrease the compensation paid to customers. Under current law, if your home or business currently generates excess electricity from solar panels on your property, you qualify for what is known as net metering. Net metering is a policy that requires utilities to credit customers for excess electric generation, reducing the customer’s bill while providing the utility with low-cost electricity. Rep. Baker’s bill seeks to lower that rate of compensation.
See below for more details on HF 845 and other bills we are monitoring so far.
We welcome your input. Feel free to be in touch about these or any other bills you feel are important to rural communities. I can be reached at [email protected], or 507.581.8545.
Let your voice be known.
It’s critical that legislators hear from the people they represent. We encourage you to get involved in the legislative process by communicating with elected officials about the issues you care about. If you don’t know who your legislators are, you can find them at this link.
Members of the general public can and are encouraged to testify before committees. This needs to be arranged with committee staff assigned to the bill prior to a scheduled hearing. Email addresses can be found here by clicking on the specific committee within the House or Senate.
Energy and environment
Senate File (SF) 441 – Support: This bill, brought by Sen. Coleman, would create a temporary income tax credit for the purchase and installation of solar energy systems. This credit would apply to classifications of business property and homesteads, including agricultural homesteads. This bill was heard on Jan. 30 in the Committee on Taxes. It was amended and laid over. Laying over a bill delays its consideration. It will be heard again in the committee at a later date.
SF 486 – Support: This bill, brought by Sen. Dibble, requests an appropriation for a supplemental energy assistance program to provide financial support to complement Minnesota’s Energy Assistance Program (EAP) and the income-qualified Minnesotans whom it helps. This bill was heard on Feb. 5 in the Committee on Energy, Utilities, Environment, and Climate. The bill was laid over for possible inclusion in the omnibus bill.
HF 9 and SF 572 – Monitor: These bills, brought separately by Rep. Swedzinski in the House and Sen. Mathews in the Senate, would allow hydroelectric facilities of any capacity and age to qualify under the renewable energy standard; delay the deadline by three years for electric utilities to meet standards set in the 100% clean electricity law; prohibit the demolition of fossil fuel powered electric generating plants; make it a policy of the state to support the development and deployment of carbon capture and sequestration technologies; and expand the sales tax exemption for residential heating fuels and electricity.
Notably, this bill also seeks to lift the nuclear moratorium and aims to delay many standards set in the 100% clean electricity law passed in 2023, which committed all utilities to provide their Minnesota customers with 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040.
In the Senate, this bill was introduced and referred to the Committee on Energy, Utilities, Environment, and Climate. In the House, this bill was heard on Feb. 11 by the Committee on Energy Finance and Policy. The committee approved the bill on an 8-7 party-line vote and forwarded it to the House Taxes Committee, as some provisions would require altering tax law.
HF 1073 and SF 733 – Support: These bills, brought by Rep. Hansen and Sen. Kunesh, respectively, lay out the responsibilities for abandoning a pipeline, including a timeline and land restoration planning, and require the approval of an abandonment plan prior to disconnecting the pipeline’s service, which includes mandatory public hearings. While the industry uses the term ”pipeline abandonment” when they wish to end use, the equipment needs to be decommissioned and removed to restore the land where the pipeline was sited. This legislation would ensure proper decommissioning of a pipeline and make sure that landowners do not get stuck removing pipeline infrastructure.
In the House, this bill was introduced and referred to the Committee on Energy Finance and Policy. In the Senate, this bill was introduced and referred to the Committee on Energy, Utilities, Environment, and Climate.
SF 761 – Support: This bill, brought by Sen. Xiong, seeks to establish a one-time appropriation of $5 million from the renewable development account in the special revenue fund to Minnesota Energy Alley, an initiative to secure the state's energy and economic development future. The money from the grant may be used to establish and support the initiative, provide seed funding for businesses, develop a training and development program, support recruitment of entrepreneurs to Minnesota, and secure funding from federal programs and corporate partners to establish a self-sustaining, long-term revenue model. This bill was introduced and referred to the Committee on Energy, Utilities, Environment, and Climate.
SF 997 – Monitor: This bill, brought by Sen. Koran, requires community solar garden subscribers to reside in the same county as the solar garden generating facility. Currently, a community solar garden subscriber must only be located in the Minnesota service territory of the utility operating the solar garden. This bill was introduced and referred to the Committee on Energy, Utilities, Environment, and Climate.
HF 845 and SF 1142 – Oppose: These companion bills, brought by Rep. Baker and Sen. Rarick, modify Minnesota’s current net metering law. Under current law, if your home or business currently generates excess electricity from solar panels on your property, you qualify for what is known as net metering. Net metering is a policy where utilities credit customers for excess electric generation, reducing the customer’s bill while providing the utility with low-cost electricity. These bills seek to lower the rate of compensation.
Under current net metering policy, people with solar arrays under 40 kW get paid the retail electric rate for any energy they send to the grid. This bill would reduce payments by switching to an avoided cost rate for projects under 40 kW in municipal and cooperative utilities territories. The retail electric rate is the price consumers pay for electricity, which includes the wholesale cost of electricity plus fees for transmission, distribution, taxes, and regulatory charges, all based on usage. The avoided cost rate is the minimum financial amount that an electric utility is required to pay an independent power producer. Since it only accounts for the cost of generating power, the avoided cost rate is usually significantly lower than the retail rate a customer pays.
Net metering has given opportunities for rural communities to participate in distributed power generation. This bill would unfairly compensate homeowners, farmers, and small businesses who made the choice to take control of their energy future with solar and discourage others from choosing solar to lower their energy costs. Moreover, this bill would reduce the amount of homegrown energy we can generate locally in Minnesota.
In the House, this bill was heard on Feb. 17 by the Committee on Energy Finance and Policy. The Committee approved the bill, as amended, by an 8-7 party-line vote and sent it to the House Floor. In the Senate, this bill was introduced and referred to the Committee on Energy, Utilities, Environment, and Climate.
Economic and community development
SF 29, SF 217, and SF 478 – Support: Seeking the same outcome, these bills, brought by Sens. Nelson, Jasinski, and Housley respectively, are looking to appropriate $25 million from the bond proceeds fund to the commissioner of transportation for the Small Cities Assistance program. This program supplies road aid to smaller Minnesota cities; eligibility is limited to cities that are not receiving municipal state-aid street funds, which generally means the city must have a population of under 5,000. SF 29 and SF 478 were introduced and referred to the Committee on Capital Investment. SF 217 was introduced and referred to the Committee on Transportation.
SF 843 and HF 1552 – Support: These bills, brought by Sen. Hauschild and Rep. Skraba, respectively, would allow for more rapid expansion of broadband services by increasing the cap on the Lower Population Density Grant Program from 75% of the total cost of a project to 90%.
As part of Minnesota’s Border-to-Border Broadband Development Grant Program, projects located in unserved or underserved areas of the state are eligible to apply for funding from the Lower Population Density Grant Program to expand broadband access. With some stipulations, eligible applicants include incorporated businesses or partnerships, political subdivisions, Tribes, nonprofit organizations, cooperative associations, or limited liability corporations. In the Senate, this bill was introduced and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Veterans, Broadband, and Rural Development. In the House, this bill was introduced and referred to the Committee on Agriculture Finance and Policy.
