Minnesota lawmakers want to ask voters to approve 25 more years of environmental fund

A bipartisan group of lawmakers wants to ask voters to extend the life of a lottery-funded environmental program that has paid for fighting invasive species, protecting Minnesota waters and restoring habitat. But they may have to overcome opposition from other legislators who want to use that money to pay for wastewater treatment upgrades and other infrastructure.

A constitutional amendment that requires the Legislature to use at least 40% of money raised from lottery ticket sales on the environmental fund expires in 2024.

State Senators Carrie Ruud, R-Breezy Point, and Foung Hawj, DFL-St. Paul, would ask voters to extend that constitutional mandate to 2050. Their proposal would also increase the fund's cut to 50% of lottery revenue — providing an additional estimated $12 million a year. It would also prohibit lawmakers from using any of the money to build or upgrade wastewater treatment plants, a contentious point in recent years that has delayed and threatened the spending.

"This is such a jewel, a gem," Ruud said. "It attracts people from all over the country to come because they know we have these research dollars."

Since 77% of Minnesota voters approved the creation of the fund in 1988, it has raised about $700 million for a wide swath of programs and research. It's been used to create research centers housed at the University of Minnesota to combat invasive carp, zebra mussels, buckthorn, weeds and other pests. The money helped start a prion research center to contain the spread of chronic wasting disease in the state's deer. It's helped restore hiking trails and reduce pollution seeping into drinking water.

As lottery and scratch-off ticket sales have grown to record highs over the last decade, so too has the environmental trust fund. It now gives between $65 million and $70 million each year to about 80 research and restoration projects.

The Senate proposal would also give the roughly $10 million in lottery winnings each year that goes unclaimed and uncollected by ticket buyers to the environmental fund. The total changes would boost the fund to about $92 million a year.

In 2020, the trust fund was tied up with a larger fight over the Walz administration's Clean Cars rules. Senate Republicans refused to approve the use of any environmental fund dollars that year, demanding that Walz delay his plan to adopt stricter vehicle emissions standards. The impasse held up funding for more than a year, but eventually resolved without changes to the Clean Cars rules.

Ruud said the environmental fund was never meant to pay for major wastewater infrastructure upgrades, which the state has always paid for by other means.

"We would be very specific that that's not what the money is for," she said. "If we start funding our wastewater needs, which we do have, out of that fund, it would absorb it all."

It's unclear how much support Ruud will have in her own party to make that change.

The environmental fund has stood the test of time, said Sen. David Senjem, R-Rochester. But future lawmakers and the citizen committee that advises them should decide if they want to use any of the money to help improve wastewater treatment systems, Senjem said.