Here's a quick update on the Minnesota energy bill.  

Conference committee met all thru the weekend and this afternoon recommended 
a compromise bill, SF #722.   The final bill should be voted on tonight 
before the legislature adjourns at midnight.  

We won one of two issues we were focused on.  The streamlining of 
transmission survived.  The elimination of certificate of need did not.....it 
got wrapped up in the debate over a 10% renewable portfolio mandate by 2015.  
At the end of the horsetrading, the certifcate of need fell victim to the 
enviros.  Their RPS that they thought they had locked was reduced to setting 
goals of achieving a level of 10% of Minnesota supplies as renewables and 
requiring green pricing to be instituted.  The enviros were then adamant that 
no power plants should be exempted from certificate of need. 

The third issue that we were backing is still alive--it just got transfered 
over to the tax committee.  The language to exempt new power plant personal 
property from taxes is still alive in both the House and the Senate, although 
the language in the Senate is much better. It appears that a tax bill and a 
budget bill will not be agreed to by adjournment, so government will shut 
down June 1 if action isn't taken.  Jesse will call a special session next 
week and they will pass a tax bill before the June 1 date.

Lastly,there are two other provisions that we will benefit from---language on 
joint finance that will allow munis and coops to enter into projects that 
they may have felt they were unable to in the past.  This may create come 
business opportunities for our ENA folks.   The other provision was a  
pleasant surprise that I thought would end up on the cutting floor that 
survived--there will be rulemaking for interconnection standards for 
distributed generation of up to 10 MW.