The feds have left a $48 billion chunk of the stimulus spending for states to divvy up largely as they please, and Minnesota lawmakers are leaders in figuring out where to spend their piece of it, the Associated Press reports. Here’s how AP’s Martiga Lohn describes it:

One Minnesota lawmaker wants $2.5 million in federal stimulus money for a suburban community arts center. Another would settle for $15,000 to make windows airtight in a community center in his district. On their colleagues’ wish lists: solar heat for public school swimming pools, a children’s museum, a family center, an early childhood reading program and an industrial biomass fuel plant.

SF1983 is one example of this earmark-style bill writing. Here’s the entire text of bill for a project eagerly sought by state Sen. Gen Olson, R-Minnetrista:

A bill for an act relating to energy finance; providing money to increase energy efficiency in Westonka schools; appropriating money.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:

Section 1. APPROPRIATION.
$1,470,000 is appropriated in fiscal year 2010 to the commissioner of education from the funds available from the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
(Public Law 111-5) for a grant to Independent School District No. 277, Westonka. The grant money must be used to replace roof sections and add insulation to district schools.

SF1865 is another example of extremely specific lawmaking, from state Sen. Dan Skogen, DFL-Hewitt:

Section 1. ENERGY GRANT TO THE CITY OF DEER CREEK.
Of the money available to Minnesota from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Public Law 111-5, and allocated to the Department of Commerce for the state
energy program, $15,000 is appropriated to the commissioner of commerce for a grant to the city of Deer Creek for the purpose of acquiring and installing energy-efficient
windows in its community center.

Last week, Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed two stimulus-funded bills distributing $130 million for unemployment assistance and $107 million for water infrastructure projects.

Since these bills have become law, unlike the ones above, I wanted to know more about these individual projects, in the spirit of Whistleblower’s continuing coverage of the stimulus money. The water projects in particular intrigued me. So I went to the Minnesota Legislature’s web site and searched by keyword for all House bills with “stimulus” in their titles. That gave me 13 results. The water bill wasn’t there, though. My Senate search gave me 25 stimulus-mentioning bills.

That got me to the bill I was looking for, SF1329. It doesn’t name individual projects. Instead, it lays out the two categories of spending: clean water projects (i.e. wastewater treatment plants, sewer lines) and drinking water systems. The new law gives a priority to “green infrastructure,” although it doesn’t really define it.

So we won’t know exactly where this $107 million will go until local communities tell the state why they should be the ones to get it.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 13th, 2009 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Government spends your money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.