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Legislative News and Views - Rep. Dan Fabian (R)

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Letter to the Editor on Line 3

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

To the Editor:

Last week, Governor Walz chose to continue challenging the Line 3 pipeline replacement – a badly need project to replace an aging pipeline that runs across northern Minnesota.

The project is critically important for several reasons. Line 3 would be the largest private infrastructure investment in Minnesota history. It would inject billions into Minnesota's economy, boost property tax revenue for counties, townships, and schools, create thousands of good-paying jobs for laborers, take oil traffic off our railroads, and stimulate local economies.

After Governor Walz was elected, many of us were committed to working with him. His experience representing a largely rural congressional district gave us hope that we could move on from the years of battles that many of us in Greater Minnesota fought with the Dayton administration.

Unfortunately, we feel let down.

Continuing these unnecessary legal games disrespects the years of work by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), the regulatory body in charge of decisions on big projects like these.

Every single current member of the PUC was appointed by former Governor Dayton, who was no friend to Minnesota pipeline projects. Despite that, the PUC has voted unanimously multiple times to let the project continue. Why? Because this project has met and surpassed all of Minnesota's tough permitting and regulatory requirements.

Instead of trusting the process—which he promised to do on more than one occasion—the governor opted to keep throwing sand in the gears with another delay in what has already been an incredibly extensive review process that has gone on for nearly four years.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Governor Walz and the position he's in. There are passionate feelings on both sides of this issue. But from where I sit, this was a big missed opportunity to show leadership and have the courage to stand up to his political allies.

This project's time has come. Let's stop the legal games, do what's right for Minnesota jobs and Minnesota communities, and put the pipe in the ground.

Sincerely,

Dan Fabian

State Representative, District 1A