The Minnesota House Agriculture Committee is taking steps to delay the Dayton administration’s planned ban on fall application of fertilizer to farm fields in some parts of Minnesota. The Republican-controlled committee said they wouldn’t do it, if the governor signed an ag policy bill — but Dayton vetoed it. Starbuck Representative Paul Anderson says the new rule wasn’t going to be ready until next January anyway. He says, “What we’re doing is saying it can’t be implemented, put into place, until the next legislative session adjourns, which would be next May [2019]. So we’re talking about five months being pushed back.”
But by that time Governor Mark Dayton will have left office, and he says the committee’s attempt try to force him to sign the ag bill is “unprecedented and offensive” and interferes with the rights of Minnesotans to clean and safe drinking water, particularly in rural areas.
More in this interview with Rep. Anderson: