House panel advances bill narrowing greenhouse-gas requirements for trunk-highway projects

The Minnesota House Transportation Committee voted 8-7 to send House File 748 to the general register after adopting two author amendments that narrow the scope of the state's 2023 greenhouse-gas (GHG) and vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) assessment law and create safety exemptions for some trunk-highway projects.

The measure, as amended, removes VMT from required assessments, extends the implementation timetable and exempts critical safety projects when mitigation is infeasible, backers said. The committee approved the A2 and A3 amendments before moving the bill forward.

Supporters of the bill, including county and city engineers and county commissioners, said the original law risks adding 20 to 40 percent to project costs and could halt projects that address long-standing safety and infrastructure needs. "When the TAC modeled an in-progress interchange in Scott County . . . the TAC metrics estimate[d] that to offset the increase in emissions, the County would need to build 68 miles of bike trails," Scott County Commissioner Barb Weckman Brecke said, adding that the TAC estimate for that mitigation was about $34,000,000 and that an alternative 2.25…