Environmental Quality Board staff recommend 'clearinghouse' approach to conform energy rules to new statute

The Environmental Quality Board (EQB) heard an update on rulemaking to conform its environmental-review rules to recent changes in state law for large energy projects and recommended a “clearinghouse” approach rather than a direct insertion of project types into Minnesota Rule chapter 4410.

Director of the EQB environmental review program Tommy Petsell told the board staff had prepared two conformity options: a “parallel” method that would place statutory project types directly into the mandatory-category parts of Minnesota Rule chapter 4410, and a recommended “clearinghouse” method that would add a new rule section directing users to Minnesota Statutes chapter 216I to determine whether a project is a “large energy infrastructure facility” and what type of environmental review applies. Petsell said the clearinghouse option better reflected the statutory structure in which thresholds and definitions — not discrete project listings —…