Special Session (Partly) Mops Up With Flood Relief Package

The Minnesota House and Senate passed a $157 million disaster relief bill in a one-day special session that ran until early Wednesday morning.

The final bill’s major provisions include:

# $38 million for repairing flood-damaged sewer and water systems, city and county buildings, municipal utilities and state and local parks.
# $35 million in grants and loans to small businesses.
# $16 million in low-interest and forgivable loans to individual homeowners.
# $1 million for property tax abatements for flooded homes and businesses.
# $584,000 to clean up and repair schools and provide aid to offset pupils who left school districts after the flood.

The bill also provides more than $5 million in aid to farmers affected by drought, forest fire damage in the Boundary Waters Canoe and Wilderness Area and flood relief for Browns Valley and Crookston.

Pawlenty signed the bill about two hours after the end of the session.

more insideDFL legislative leaders had pressed for the session to also consider funding for a transportation bill that would address road and bridge repair, but Pawlenty would only agree to a session that covered flood relief for southeastern Minnesota. The governor had previously said he would be willing to allow infrastructure issues, as well as property tax relief and a small gas tax increase to be taken up in the session.

Although a transportation bill was not included in the package taken up by the legislature, a provision for $51 million to repair and replace roads and bridges found its way into the bill that Pawlenty approved.

Although it wasn’t on the agenda, a comprehensive transportation bill still was referred to several times in DFL House members’ floor speeches.

DFL Rep. Phyllis Kahn expressed at one point that she was “saddened and disappointed” that the governor wouldn’t allow the session to deal with the state’s most pressing issues and hoped “we don’t have reason for regret” before February’s regular session for not addressing them.

Tony Sertich, DFL House Majority Leader, complained that the legislative package Pawlenty allowed to be considered focused “solely on being reactive, and not proactive,” by not including a transportation bill that would cover road and bridge repair.

Before the session, several Republicans also voiced their dissatisfaction with the exclusion of a transportation bill, especially in light of last month’s I-35 bridge collapse. A transportation bill had passed with bipartisan support in the last regular session, but Pawlenty vetoed it. When asked whether he thought the bill would be resurrected in February’s regular session, Republican representative Jim Abeler said, “Oh, absolutely. It has to get addressed, and I hope that level heads will prevail. If they don’t, I hope we pass that bill anyway.”

Abeler and other representatives in both parties say that a veto-proof majority now exists, and that Pawlenty would in effect have no way to prevent a transportation bill from becoming law.

Republican representative Neal Peterson went as far as to say, “I’m hoping the governor has a good experience today and will be willing to call another special session in a week or two, just to deal with transportation.” Such an occurrence seems unlikely.

Although legislators worked throughout the day Tuesday on the details of the final version of the flood relief proposal, House debate did not begin until about 11:15 PM Tuesday night and lasted about two hours. The ensuing Senate debate was almost anti-climactic, with the Senate approving the House bill several moments after calling the session to order.

The final votes were 130-0 in the House and 62-1 in the Senate.