Guest Column by Rod Hamilton

 

Dear Gov. Dayton,

We sincerely appreciate your letter to the Board of Water and Soil Resources dated April 9 in opposition to the proposed administrative penalty order for the buffer law that is currently open for public comment. It is our hope that the board will take appropriate action to dispense with this proposal at their meeting on Thursday.

While we are united in opposition to these penalties, and appreciate your work in public and behind the scenes to defeat this proposal, this exercise has served to highlight what has been an ongoing frustration within the agriculture community with regard to transparency and input for major policy proposals.

Too often, your state agencies have employed a ready-fire-aim approach that leaves farmers and legislators feeling blind-sided. While public meetings are held, and comments are solicited, policies are largely crafted behind closed doors and unveiled to the public with little or no input from relevant stakeholders prior to their release.

On numerous issues including buffer strips, ditch mowing, nitrates, pesticides and others, administrative actions have come as a surprise to stakeholders who felt like they had limited input or that their concerns were not sufficiently addressed.

Rather than unveiling the full text of policies and seeking input after the fact during a public comment period, we feel it would be mutually beneficial to engage farmers, legislators and other stakeholders as the proposals are crafted.

To that end, we are requesting the immediate release of the draft nitrate rule you announced on March 6. Waiting until mid-to-late May to release the details of this proposed rule will leave legislators with little or no opportunity to have a say in the process.

Even if the rule has not been finalized, releasing the latest draft will give farmers, legislators and other members of the public an opportunity to seek changes or adjustments before it enters the formal public comment period.

We view this as an opportunity for a course correction, and a chance to avoid the same mistakes that led to the recent buffer administrative penalty order mess. The Legislature stands ready to hold hearings and gather input, and we would encourage your administration to hold additional meetings on the text of the proposed rule prior to it entering the formal administrative process and comment period. We firmly believe a little bit of work at the beginning would go a long way to assuaging concerns of the agriculture community, and making farmers feel like they have a voice in the process.

With precious little time remaining in this legislative session, we respectfully request a response or the release of the draft rule in its current form no later than Friday. If you do not wish to release the rule prior to its formal unveiling in May, the Legislature will need to explore our options to ensure Minnesotans have an opportunity through their elected representatives to make their voices heard on this critical issue.

Thank you in advance for your consideration of this request.

Rod Hamilton, R-Mountain Lake, is the District 22B representative.