Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 9
Safe drinking water must be a shared value in Minnesota
It’s hard to persuade residents of a state whose very name bespeaks an abundance of water to worry about water quality. Maybe that’s why three successive governors did little to implement a 1989 statute empowering state agencies to “promote best practice… to the extent practicable” to minimize groundwater pollution.
Then again, Govs. Arne Carlson, Jesse Ventura and Tim Pawlenty were in office before Minnesotans knew the extent to which nitrate is contaminating groundwater, the drinking water source for 75 percent of Minnesotans. Nitrate causes a potentially fatal condition in infants and is a suspected source of other health disorders.
The bigger worry in 1989 was pesticide pollution. Only since enactment of the Legacy Amendment in 2008 was funding available for tests that found that dozens of community water systems and, in a southeastern Minnesota sample, one in 10 private wells contained potentially unsafe nitrate levels. Although nitrate is a naturally occurring substance, elevated levels in water have been linked to farmers’ use of fertilizer to boost production of this state’s two big cash crops, corn and soybeans.
Unlike his predecessors, DFL Gov. Mark Dayton is not spared that knowledge, and he’s trying to do something about it. Last week, Dayton and state agriculture Commissioner Dave Frederickson unveiled an amended version of a proposed rule on agricultural fertilizer use in areas with porous soil and/or high nitrate levels in public drinking water.
In those targeted areas, the proposed rule would restrict fertilizer use in the autumn, in keeping with best practices recommended by the University of Minnesota. Fertilizer applied in the autumn is most likely to leach into groundwater or wash into streams and rivers rather than stay in the topsoil to be absorbed by young plants in the next growing season. That’s especially true where soils are porous and/or annual precipitation is high.
The proposed new rule would rely on local advisory teams and a phased series of voluntary and mandatory practices to address high nitrate concentrations. “No one will be told ’You can’t grow corn,’?” Frederickson assured a state Senate panel.
Nevertheless, the amended rule is bound to face some of the same resistance its original version faced last year. Republican legislators made that clear. “My farmers feel like they’ve been kicked around” by the Dayton administration, state Sen. Michael Goggin, R-Red Wing, told Frederickson, referring to Dayton’s push to ban row crop production in buffer strips adjacent to public waterways.
Two House committee chairmen, Rod Hamilton of Mountain Lake and Paul Anderson of Starbuck, issued a joint statement calling Dayton’s effort “a reactionary re-branding of a vastly unpopular rule.” They urged the governor to drop the rule-making effort and “work with us through the legislative process to ensure maximum participation and input from farmers and other stakeholders.”
We can echo part of that call. As the rule-making process enters a new public comment phase, those comments ought to include legislative hearings. The proposed rule is subject to more months of public input before at least one more revision; it is expected to be finalized by December. That’s ample time for legislators to weigh in. But the 1989 Legislature was right to give a state agency the authority to take practical steps to keep Minnesota’s drinking water safe. That authority should stand. The Legislature is ill-suited to do this work on its own.
The state Senate sponsor of the 1989 bill, Steve Morse, is today’s executive director of the Minnesota Environmental Partnership. Halting the rule-making now would be “a horrendous setback” at a critical time, Morse aptly said. “It goes to a core question about who we are as Minnesotans, if we will not protect our corpus of clean water.” Now would be a fine time for Minnesotans who agree to say as much to their legislators.
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St. Cloud Times, March 9
It’s past time to shed some sunshine on the Capitol
If the White House Correspondents Dinner is “nerd prom” (and that’s not an entirely inaccurate characterization of the annual Washington press corps event) then this week must be “nerd spring break.”
Every March, pasty journalists and good-government types celebrate Sunshine Week, seven days dedicated to raising the profile of the merits of open government.
What’s “open government”? It’s shorthand for a bedrock concept of American democracy: that the government works for the people - not the other way around -and thus it naturally follows that the vast majority of the government’s business, township to Oval Office, should be conducted in the light of day.
Sunshine Week was born nationally in 2005, when the American Society of Newspaper Editors launched the annual observance. The week aligns with the March 16 birthday of James Madison, father of the U.S. Constitution and a framer of the Bill of Rights.
It’s traditionally been a journalist’s “holiday.” Public records, open meetings, government research and databases are part of our stock in trade, after all. But sunshine applies to everyone - even you.
Anyone who wants to take on City Hall needs sunshine. Anyone who takes an interest in school district actions or policing issues or tax policy needs open government to get their facts and either cheer on their public officials and institutions or reform them.
Open government is no simple thing. It’s governed by hundreds - possibly thousands - of state and federal laws, local ordinances and board policies, just for starters.
And those laws, policies and ordinances have to keep changing with the times. In fact, at least 33 bills directly affecting access to public records and proceedings are active in the Minnesota Legislature this year.
Among the most important, we believe, is SF1476/HF1065. The proposed law would finally open a window on lawmaking in Minnesota by making the Legislature subject to the Minnesota Open Meeting Law and the Minnesota Data Practices Act.
That means that, like school boards, city councils, county boards and many other types of public bodies, the Legislature would, by default, have to conduct its business with open doors and make public its records, proceedings, payments and other data.
Frankly, it confounds understanding why this isn’t already the law of the land.
Opponents to letting more light into the smoke-filled rooms of government generally argue that a certain amount of secrecy makes for better government. In most cases, color us skeptical.
Still, rational people understand that, for example, contract negotiations and some personnel matters are best conducted with some limited privacy. And Minnesota’s open meeting and data practices laws already provide several exceptions to achieve those obvious ends.
If you have ever been frustrated by how the Minnesota Legislature does its business (and who hasn’t, given the long track record of end-of-session midnight deals?), we urge you to read these bills and tell your legislators how you feel about them.
Sunshine Week. It’s here, and you’ll hear more from us before it’s over. Stay tuned.
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Mankato Free Press, March 8
Trade wars are not good, or easy to win
Despite widespread opposition from his own party, business leaders and allies around the world, President Donald Trump on Friday imposed stiff tariffs on steel and aluminum.
While aimed at protecting some U.S. steel industry jobs, the effects will be felt harshly by consumers who will pay more for everything from beer cans to automobiles and by area farmers and manufacturers who are likely to see their exports devalued as other countries counter with their own tariffs.
One of the strengths of the Greater Mankato economy has always been that it is well diversified. But it is also heavily tilted toward manufacturing and agribusiness - sectors that will find little to cheer in the trade wars likely to be triggered by the 25 percent steel and 10 percent aluminum tariffs.
Shortly after making the tariff announcement - one that surprised even Trump’s top staff, including his own economic adviser Gary Cohn who later resigned -Trump tweeted that “trade wars are good, and easy to win.”
As with many things the president glibly states, his views on trade wars are contradicted by history and fact. Like real wars, trade wars have a way of escalating, are rarely “won” and are ever harder to extract oneself from.
Trump’s last-minute decision to exclude Canada and Mexico from the new tariffs - if the countries give concessions on renegotiation the NAFTA agreement - may seem like some solace. But the move could do even more serious harm to Minnesota businesses and farmers.
That’s because the Minnesota economy, and particularly farm income, benefits greatly from NAFTA, which heavily favors farmers exporting corn, soybeans and other farm products.
And it’s not just those who export hogs or corn who will be hurt by a redrawn NAFTA or by retaliatory tariffs by China and other trading partners.
Those farm products, many flowing to Minnesota’s two largest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, not only bolster farm income but have a widespread economic impact across the state’s economy. A renegotiated NAFTA is certain to make those farm exports less valuable and hammer the agribusiness economy.
The state is also home to a large number of major corporate headquarters - such as 3M, CHS, Land O’Lakes - that provide so much employment and economic benefit. Those companies and thousands of smaller ones that make goods that are exported benefit mightily from free global trade.
While Trump’s move is broadly opposed by congressional Republicans, it’s unlikely they will move to blunt the tariffs through legislation. Presidents have long been given broad authority to handle international trade without Congress interfering.
The only hope is that Trump, who is not known for sticking with his pronouncements, can be swayed to divert from a path that will lead to higher prices for consumers and a net loss of jobs for Americans.
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