Minnesota Lawyer

DFL legislative leaders have taken a proposed increase in the state’s per gallon gasoline tax off the table. Although nothing at the Legislature is ever truly dead until adjournment, the fate of the gasoline tax appears to be sealed, according to news reports and the House and Senate transportation chairs.

The state House on Friday agreed to submit to Minnesota voters a constitutional amendment question that asks if an independent council should be given the authority to determine legislators’ pay.

Gov. Mark Dayton’s administration on Thursday for the first time floated an idea to House and Senate transportation negotiators for funding highway construction. Minnesota Department of Transportation Commissioner Charlie Zelle told the House and Senate transportation conferees that $300 million in trunk highway bonding would be a way to pick up the pace on improving the state’s transportation infrastructure.

State lawmakers in recent months of have decried the lackluster performance of the electronic pull tabs that are supposed to pay the state's share of the new Minnesota Vikings stadium project. On Thursday Gov. Mark Dayton's administration offered a back-up funding plan to shore up the project.

The House passed its jobs and energy budget bill on Wednesday night 73-59. The bill has increased funding for a passel of economic development projects and also requires investor-owned utilities to produce 1.5 percent of their power from solar sources by 2020.

The House and Senate are at odds with each other in conference committee over raising the allowable truck weights for freight loads on Minnesota roads. In a proposal that pits the aggregate industry against the railroad industry, the Senate has proposed to increase weight limits for freight hauling trucks on state and local roads from the current 80,000 pound limit.

While the public’s eyes were glued this week to the passage and signing of the gay marriage bill, most lobbyists were camped out in the Capitol well into the night tracking — or awaiting — the deliberations of numerous conference committees.

The House has matched the Senate on funding for some economic development programs. But the two sides broke from conference committee on Monday night with some important differences yet to be ironed out.

The Senate Finance Committee has passed its Legacy bill to the floor. Sportsmen and conservation groups favor the Senate's bill because it is limited to the recommendations of the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council. The House adds projects that weren't vetted by the council.

In the latest in a number of about-faces on transportation this session, the Senate cracked open the omnibus transportation bill on the floor and inserted a gas tax increase to pay for road and bridge projects and a sales tax increase in the seven-county metro area for transit projects.