Daily Digest: Odds and ends

Good morning, and welcome to Friday. It's been an odd short week also notable for being Bob Collin's last at MPR. Happy retirement, Bob. Here's the Digest.

1. Legislature takes steps to address CWD. Chronic wasting disease was a contentious topic this legislative session. Lawmakers came in with a laundry list of tough proposals designed to slow the spread of the fatal deer disease. But those bills were quickly whittled away by committees and compromise. What actually passed is less drastic, but experts say Minnesota's new CWD measures are a good start. The most notable bill enforces what's referred to as mandatory depopulation. If CWD is found on a captive deer farm, the whole herd is now required to be wiped out. "That is entirely consistent with how other diseases are dealt with in agriculture," said Bryan Richards, the emerging disease coordinator for the wildlife division of the U.S. Geological Survey. Depopulation is the only thing proven to stop the disease, but it almost didn't make it through the Legislature. (MPR News)

2. Walz signs education bill. DFL Gov. Tim Walz has signed the first in a series of budget bills that lawmakers passed last week in a special session. In total, the finance bills make up a new $48 billion, two-year state budget. Walz went to Bruce Vento Elementary School in St. Paul Thursday to sign the E-12 education bill.  The measure provides a $543 million increase in funding to public schools, including a 2 percent bump in the per pupil formula each of the next two years. Last year, then-Gov. Mark Dayton used the same backdrop to veto a tax bill. Following a short signing ceremony, Walz said he is proud that he has so far not vetoed any bills that were passed this year. “That is certainly a prerogative and something that the executive office has and uses as a tool when necessary,” Walz said. “But I certainly think that this is the way Minnesotans would like us to get things done, and this E-12 bill does that.” Walz wanted more money for schools, but he said the education bill was a good compromise with Senate Republicans. The governor is expected to sign the rest of the budget bills by the end of the day Friday. (MPR News)

3. Child care debate started with access, ended at fraud. At the start of this year’s legislative session, the debate over child care policy was focused primarily on making it cheaper and easier to find amid high prices and a lack of options across Minnesota. But by the time lawmakers adjourned this month, attention had shifted almost entirely to something else: fraud. A state audit in March found that fraud in the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), a prominent subsidy for low-income families, was tough to root out and likely more pervasive than what prosecutors have been able to prove. The politically explosive report from the Office of the Legislative Auditor could not substantiate some allegations made in an attention-grabbing Fox 9 story from 2018 — namely a link between fraudulent CCAP money and terrorists in Somalia — but it nevertheless mobilized Republicans and some DFLers to call for sweeping reform. Now, Republicans are cheering the two-year state budget approved last weekend, which has a long list of anti-fraud measures and a freeze on most new CCAP spending. A CCAP expansion was a top child care priority for some advocacy groups and DFLers headed into the 2019 session. “It really is important to make sure that the dollars go where they’re supposed to,” said Sen. Jim Abeler, a Republican from Anoka who chairs the Human Services Reform Finance and Policy Committee. “And so the effect of this bill is going to be much more program integrity.” (MinnPost)

4. CBD gets some regulation. As the hemp and CBD industry takes shape in Minnesota, state lawmakers and industry advocates are going through some growing pains. Regulations worked into a budget bill awaiting Gov. Tim Walz' signature concern some in the nascent, but fast-growing industry. Sen. Karla Bigham, DFL-Cottage Grove, said her bill to require improvements in labeling, consumer oversight and levels of trace elements was "one of the only DFL amendments that got on that [Health and Human Services] bill." Republicans hold the majority in the Minnesota Senate. CBD comes from hemp, a newly legalized crop. It's used in fiber, grain or oil form. And applications to grow hemp in the state have increased steeply since the start of 2019, according to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. Hemp is described as a cousin of marijuana, with much lower levels of THC — the chemical that produces a high. CBD oil extracted from hemp is sometimes marketed to help with problems like chronic pain and anxiety. "People deserve to know what is in the CBD and who is making it," Bigham said. "The FDA and the [Minnesota] Board of Pharmacy don't feel comfortable not knowing what is in those products. It could be maple syrup, so we just want to bring truth to that labeling and testing." (MPR News)

5. Judge says voters will have final say on St. Paul trash. A judge ruled in favor of St. Paul residents who sued to have the city's organized trash collection system put to a vote, taking the city to task for what he called a violation of its own city charter. Ramsey County District Judge Leonardo Castro ordered Thursday that the system be suspended June 30 until voters can decide whether it should continue. "It's huge," said attorney Greg Joseph, who represents three residents who sued the city. "It's the right thing. We're very, very happy." Last year, the City Council rejected a petition from residents to put the issue up for a vote, prompting some to file suit earlier this year asking for judicial intervention. Castro was critical of the city's actions, and rejected its logic for denying the referendum. The city's charter allows residents to petition to have ordinances put up for a vote. Critics of the city's organized trash system gathered 6,469 signatures asking that residents be allowed to vote on the ordinance governing collection, the judge said. (Star Tribune)

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