I bring this Minnesota bill to your attention thinking that it may be one  
state that we can point to as moving forward rather than backward as a 
response to California.  This bill would absolutely not have moved if 
California had not been on the radar screen--for the first time in four 
years, the leadership insisted that the caucuses move something out of 
committee on energy.

WHile customer choice did not ultimately survive (it got knocked out towards 
the end of the committee votes), there was a general agreement by committee 
members that MN had to prepare for retail access, but that they needed to get 
the wholesale market in better shape in preparation.

By the way, the enviromental community was very very confident that they were 
going to get a mandate for a 10% renewable portfolio standard by 2015, and 
they were then going to make Minnesota the poster child to promote mandated 
RPS across the country.  Their mandate turned into "goals" to be met by 
utilities, and they are not happy.


----- Forwarded by Susan M Landwehr/NA/Enron on 05/23/2001 07:02 AM -----

	Susan M Landwehr
	05/23/2001 07:01 AM
		 
		 To: Fred Mitro/HOU/ECT@ECT, Ben Jacoby/HOU/ECT@ECT, Mitch 
Robinson/Corp/Enron@Enron, Edward D Baughman/Enron@EnronXGate, Christi L 
Nicolay/HOU/ECT@ECT, Jeff Ader/HOU/EES@EES, Mark Bernstein/HOU/EES@EES, Marc 
Ulrich/HOU/EES@EES, Scott Stoness/HOU/EES@EES, Ajit Gill/HOU/EES@EES, Jeff 
Rudolph/HOU/EES@EES, Terri Clynes/Enron@EnronXGate, Oscar 
Dalton/Enron@EnronXGate
		 cc: Janine Migden/NA/Enron@Enron, Roy Boston/HOU/EES@EES, Kerry 
Stroup/NA/Enron@Enron, Harry Kingerski/NA/Enron@Enron, Robert 
Frank/NA/Enron@Enron, Donald Lassere/NA/Enron@Enron, Bill J 
Moore/EFS/EES@EES, James D Steffes/NA/Enron@Enron, Barbara A 
Hueter/NA/Enron@Enron, Jennifer Thome/NA/Enron@Enron
		 Subject: Minnesota Energy Legislation

Earlier this week the Minnesota legislature passed an omnibus energy bill--SF 
#722.  The Governor is expected to sign the bill.  Much of the bill focused 
on increasing conservation, helping low income customers, setting goals for 
renewable energy development, setting up reliability standards (the unions 
had to get something!) etc.  However, there are also some sections that may 
be commercially beneficial to us.

The bill streamlines the process for transmission siting, and to a small 
degree, makes generation siting a bit easier.  Interconnection standards and 
rules for distributed generation (defined as up to 10MW) are required and the 
process will begin late this summer.  The munis and coops had a section on 
"joint finance" that will allow them to enter into projects with other 
parties--this should make it easier for them to do business with us.  
Minnesota has approx 120 municipal utilities and over 40 co ops. 

There is still outstanding an issue of a personal property tax exemption for 
merchant plants.  That provision was transfered to the overall tax bill, 
which is still being debated.  We should have a conclusion on the tax bill 
late next week. 

Please call if you have any questions or would like further info.  
#612-339-4599