Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton brought down the agriculture policy bill with a veto. The legislation returned soil loss ordinance authority back to the counties, where it had been prior to the 2015 buffer bill. This provision was apparently the reason for the veto. In return, the House and Senate agriculture policy committees passed a resolution delaying implementation of the nitrogen fertilizer law for another year. Agriculture lobbyist Cory Bennett says the process will continue, but Dayton will not be able to sign it into law. “It punts it to the next administration; rather than being implemented at the end of this year, the earliest it could be implemented is at the end of the legislative session in 2019.” Bennett says the legislative session was complicated by election year politics. “When you have the governor’s office up for grabs and the House up for grabs and Governor Dayton, who certainly tried to protect his legacy, those are dynamics that made up this session.”
