Local lawmakers react to Pawlenty unallotment order

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- "It's beyond talk at this point; now people are going to feel it."

Reflecting on Gov. Tim Pawlenty's unallotment order issued Friday, State Rep. Brad Finstad, R-New Ulm, gave that assessment and blamed the DFL-controlled Senate for forcing Pawlenty's hand.

"I'm very disappointed in the Senate. The DFL Senate was more concerned with increasing and protecting the welfare benefits for non-citizens than they are in stimulating the economic growth and protecting those citizens, especially rural citizens, as far as ethanol and some of the other program cuts."

State Sen. Dennis Frederickson, R-New Ulm, who had earlier expressed optimism in getting conservative rural Democrats to side with Senate Republicans to form a majority, said, "There just wasn't the time to form alliances and coalitions to get a package through the Senate" more in keeping with the Republicans' game plan.

One of the biggest disappointments for both lawmakers is the hit that ethanol producers are going to take with little subsidy money left.

"We worked really hard and long to take the governor's first proposal, getting it back to 16 cents a gallon so we saw that as a great accomplishment," Finstad said. "Farmers were happy with it; the ethanol plants said they could definitely make it with that. Now to see the deal being broke up on welfare benefits for non-citizens; it's just frustrating."

The state ethanol subsidy program promised ethanol plants not yet making a profit a 20-cent a gallon up to 15 million gallon limit subsidy for up to 10 years. Thirteen of the state's 14 plants still qualify for the subsidy.

However, the $20 million that Pawlenty is taking from the program will drive the subsidy down to 4 or 5 cents a gallon, Frederickson said.

"We're at a point, too, where we have some ethanol plants [that] were just turning the corner to try to get to some profitability," Finstad said. "Now, we don't know what will happen to them."

"But that could be revisited in the next budget, too," Frederickson said. "When we pass the big budget for the next two years, we could also revisit this and make what we would call a deficiency appropriation if the governor agreed to it and if we had the money."

Finstad said legislators need to stay in close communication with their constituents in order to find solutions to the state's budget problems.

"That's when we definitely need to hear from public testimony to work through it and see what we can and can't do. And the people in the district have been doing very good in communicating with me," Finstad said.