The Senate Finance Committee hewed to the recommendations of the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources, which earlier winnowed the original 192 proposals down to 71 projects.

A much anticipated floor amendment that divided environmental and economic interests was withdrawn after a lengthy discussion on the Senate floor this afternoon.

Legislative leaders have signaled recently that job growth will be the central goal of the bonding bill in the 2010 legislative session. Those sentiments portend good things for remodeling buildings on college campuses and for bridge replacement projects. But the focus on economic development concerns environment and conservation groups that also ask for hundreds of millions of dollars in bonding for things like acquiring prairie and wetlands.

Two panels that both recommend environmental projects to state lawmakers are at the early stages of working through their differences and charting a course to ...