MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — State House opponents of the Northstar Corridor commuter rail project between Minneapolis and the St. Cloud area flexed new muscle Monday, gathering enough votes to strip $9 million for it from the $839 million capital improvement bill, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
After deleting funds for the heavily lobbied passenger rail project, the House approved the entire bonding bill on a 95-37 vote. It now goes to the Senate and an eventual House-Senate conference committee, where differences with the Senate’s $1.2 billion version will be worked out.
“I’m not giving up,” Northstar point person, Rep. Kathy Tingelstad, R-Andover, said after the vote. The Senate capital building bill includes $8 million for Northstar; Ventura asked for $120 million. Those forces might prevail, Tingelstad suggested.
Last Thursday Tingelstad led a bipartisan coalition of legislators, most of whom represent districts near the corridor, and inserted $9 million for Northstar into the bill — only to lose Monday.
That $120 million figure, which would be the state’s share of a $294 million federal-state-local project, was seized upon by opponents as a primary reason to vote against it.
“Where does the other $111 million come from?” asked Rep. Phil Krinkie, R-Shoreview. “Somebody got that in their back pocket?”
Proponents contend that without the state’s share — or part of it — Minnesota will lose the federal share to other states, and the fast-growing corridor along U.S. Hwy. 10 will continue to be consigned to one form of transportation — cars and trucks.
The shift in support for Northstar became evident when Rep. Jim Knoblach, R-St. Cloud, earlier a Northstar supporter, declared his intention to vote to strip commuter rail money from the larger bill which as chief sponsor he helped fashion.
“I will tell you this vote is probably the most difficult vote that I’ve ever taken,” Knoblach said. There are other projects in the bill for St. Cloud, which he said he needed to protect. The bill needed 81 votes to pass and cleared that bar comfortably.
Though the Northstar funds represented about 1 percent of the bill’s total, it was the subject of almost all the debate over the bill Monday.
Gov. Jesse Ventura recommended $834.2 million in capital improvements in January but has since said the total should be whittled down to about $500 million because of more bad budget news. He has not yet provided a list of cuts.
The House bill splits the difference between the Senate and Ventura’s plans in spending for the University of Minnesota and schools in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system.
The House, for example, recommends $131 million for the University of Minnesota, compared with $219 million in the Senate plan and $85 million in Ventura’s. But the House proposes spending more money for roads and bridge projects than either competing plan, with $148 million overall.
Also in the bill is $50 million to build a new laboratory that would be shared by the departments of health and agriculture.
Other items include:
— Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system, $196 million. (Senate, $219.1 million; governor, $266.6 million.)
— All transportation, $157 million. (Senate $67.5 million; governor, $175.5 million.)
— Minnesota Zoo $3 million. (Senate, $7.2 million; governor, $10 million.)
— State parks, $28 million. (Senate, $32.5 million; governor, $31 million.)
— Northwest busway from Minneapolis to Dayton and Rogers, $4 million. (Senate, $5 million; governor, $50 million.)
— Guthrie Theater, none. (Senate $30 million; governor, none.)
— St. Paul Phalen Boulevard cleanup, $8 million. (Senate, $8 million; governor, none.)