John Howe hasn’t taken out a personal loan since 1996, according to an answer he gave reporters during a Tuesday morning press conference. That period ...

The office building and two adjacent parking lots were provided for out of last year's tax bill, a surprise inclusion that appeared with hours to spare.

State lawmakers from southeastern Minnesota are assessing their options to help livestock producers who are facing steep prices for forage to feed their cows. Three extreme weather trends have happened in succession in the last year to create a hay shortage.

House and Senate conferees have agreed on a set of regulations for frac sand mining in southeastern Minnesota. One conferee said the breadth of the issues that are addressed makes the legislation the first of its kind in the country.

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 Senate Finance Committee turned down Sen. Matt Schmit's bid to amend frac sand legislation into the game and fish bill less than a week after it removed from the same bill by a different committee. However, Gov. Mark Dayton's administration has voiced strong support for Schmit's proposal, creating the potential for it to reemerge before session's end.

Opponents of frac sand mining won’t likely see their favored moratorium in the Senate omnibus budget bill for the environment and natural resources. While the committee's chairman Sen. David Tomassoni said frac sand mining will be limited to a "placeholder" in the bill, he said the proposal's author Sen. Matt Schmit can pursue legislation outside the omnibus bill as the session heads for adjournment next month.

There’s an old adage at the Capitol that first-term legislators should be seen and not heard. St. Paul can take some getting used to, the thinking goes, and most issues debated at the Legislature are so complex that newcomers would do well to sit back quietly and learn.

A new proposal has been added to the heap of bills to regulate frac sand mining. The Senate Environment and Energy Committee has passed a game and fish bill that would significantly restrict mining activities in southeastern Minnesota, which is rich in the silica sand that’s a key ingredient in the hydraulic fracturing technique of oil exploration that’s being pursued in western North Dakota.

If DFL majorities in the Minnesota House and Senate are to act on the brewing issue of frac sand extraction, they will first have to overcome internal differences that yawn as large as an open-pit mine.