Minnesota energy bill

Here's a quick update on the Minnesota energy bill.

Conference committee met all thru the weekend and this afternoon recommended
a compromise bill, SF #722. The final bill should be voted on tonight
before the legislature adjourns at midnight.

We won one of two issues we were focused on. The streamlining of
transmission survived. The elimination of certificate of need did not.....it
got wrapped up in the debate over a 10% renewable portfolio mandate by 2015.
At the end of the horsetrading, the certifcate of need fell victim to the
enviros. Their RPS that they thought they had locked was reduced to setting
goals of achieving a level of 10% of Minnesota supplies as renewables and
requiring green pricing to be instituted. The enviros were then adamant that
no power plants should be exempted from certificate of need.

The third issue that we were backing is still alive--it just got transfered
over to the tax committee. The language to exempt new power plant personal
property from taxes is still alive in both the House and the Senate, although
the language in the Senate is much better. It appears that a tax bill and a
budget bill will not be agreed to by adjournment, so government will shut
down June 1 if action isn't taken. Jesse will call a special session next
week and they will pass a tax bill before the June 1 date.

Lastly,there are two other provisions that we will benefit from---language on
joint finance that will allow munis and coops to enter into projects that
they may have felt they were unable to in the past. This may create come
business opportunities for our ENA folks. The other provision was a
pleasant surprise that I thought would end up on the cutting floor that
survived--there will be rulemaking for interconnection standards for
distributed generation of up to 10 MW.