Dennis Anderson: Important day is ahead for dedicated funding bill

Tuesday when the Senate Taxes Committee asks for a show of hands on Sen. Larry Pogemiller's dedicated funding bill, history will be made.

Or, at least, be in the making.

My view is the taxes panel chaired by Sen. Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, will pass the measure, though perhaps by a slim margin, maybe only 7-6.

With that approval, Pogemiller's bill establishing a 3/8 of 1 percent increase in the state sales tax, with proceeds dedicated to fish and wildlife habitat, clean water, arts and culture, will soon reach the Senate floor, where it will also pass.

In the next few weeks, I believe dedicated funding for conservation will also be OK'd by the House, ending a nine-year struggle that pitted, oddly, the citizenry against the Legislature -- the former asking the latter to do what's right, and the latter stalling.

It's not that everyone on the Senate Taxes Committee or in the House or Senate suddenly has decided to come to the aid of the state's natural resources before it's too late.

That would be the correct thing to do, and certainly some who vote in Taxes on Tuesday will do so because they care deeply about Minnesota and its people and want to ensure that future generations have clean lakes and rivers and abundant wildlife to enjoy, not to mention healthy water to drink and pollutant-free air to breathe.

But others will act in favor of dedicated funding for political or, simply, pragmatic reasons.

It didn't go unnoticed in the Legislature, for example, that last year's DFL majority leader, Dean Johnson, was tossed out of the Senate for, among other reasons, stiffing the dedicated funding bill and those who supported it.

If it can happen to him, it can happen to lawmakers of lesser stature.

But that's not what's important.

What's important is the view, as it were, from 30,000 feet -- from which vantage point the breaking up of the state's forests can be readily observed, as can the further loss of its wetlands, the proliferation of spring flooding and the endless development that stretches from Rochester to the Twin Cities to St. Cloud and beyond.

Important as well is context.

How the state's natural resources are faring next week, next month or next year is less important than how they fare 50 years from now, or even 25, when about 1 million more people will live in or near the Twin Cities; when open spaces will command an even higher premium than they do today; and when, perhaps, no fish in the state will be safe for consumption.

What we do or don't do today to conserve our natural resources will define that future for our kids and grandkids.

Will we finally begin to clean up our lakes and rivers?

Reduce farmland runoff?

Buffer drainage ditches?

Mitigate for the scores of square miles of blacktop and other impervious surfaces laid down each year in the metro?

Regain the health of our wetlands?

Keep our forests intact?

Provide for fish and wildlife?

When the 13 members of the Senate Taxes Committee vote on Pogemiller's bill Tuesday, their preferences -- yea or nay -- will be telltale of just how diligently they've studied these questions.

And how well they've developed answers to them.

Who could possibly vote no to conservation?

Some legislators could, and will.

They argue dedicated funding is a bad idea, that the Legislature should have full command over the state's larder and decide alone on a biennium-to-biennium basis who gets how much.

Except the environment never gets its share.

Instead, year after year, it gets less and less, just as -- and not coincidentally -- year after year, algae blooms appear on our lakes ever earlier in summer, more beaches are closed to swimming because of pollutants, and more and more of our fish are ruled too toxic to eat.

Liberal or conservative, as Minnesotans we need to acknowledge that, left to our individual actions, we will never act uniformly enough to effectively counter the collective misdeeds waged against our natural resources by a postmodern world bent, annually, on increasing its GDP.

Instead, protection of natural resources must be institutionalized.

As important, such protection must be undertaken in the most efficient way possible. No longer is it acceptable, politically or financially, to simply throw money at a problem and hope it goes away.

The House and Senate dedicated funding bills lay the foundation for such efficiencies, minimizing the potential for bureaucratic black holes, and maximizing the opportunity for citizens themselves to play key roles in defining and implementing a statewide conservation plan.

Should you want to contact members of the Senate Taxes Committee who will take up Sen. Pogemiller's bill, S.F. 6, on Tuesday, their names and office phone numbers are below.

I'm sure they'd love to hear from you, one and all.

Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook (651-296-8881); Dan Larson, DFL-Bloomington (651-297-8061); Julianne Ortman, R-Chanhassen (651-296-4837); Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis (651-296-4191); Debbie Johnson, DFL-Ham Lake (651-296-3219); Keith Langseth, DFL-Glyndon (651-296-3205); Warren Limmer, R-Maple Grove (651-296-2159); John Marty, DFL-Roseville (651-296-5645); Mee Moua, DFL-St. Paul (651-296-5285); Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis (651-296-7809); David Senjem, R-Rochester (651-296-3903); Katie Sieben, DFL-Newport (651) 297-8060); Rod Skoe, DFL-Clearbrook (651-296-4196).