Going lights out for ‘lights-on’

Yesterday, the state House of Representatives passed HF 2442, the Energy omnibus budget bill for FY 2026-27. As passed, the bill runs less than 6 pages of text.

The bare-bones bill does little more than keep the lights on at the state’s energy agencies, the Public Utilities Commission and the Department of Commerce’s energy division.

The energy portion of the equivalent bill passed in 2023 extends more than 20 pages and spends hundreds of millions of dollars (not a typo) more on left-wing energy fantasies, as I documented here.

I wrote back in November, just after the election:

If the now-divided Minnesota legislature is looking for bipartisan consensus, a bare-bones, keep-the-lights-on two-year budget would be in order. Not funding frivolous grant programs and unaccountable nonprofits would fit the mood of the times.

So far, so good. Unfortunately, missing from this budget bill is any useful policy reforms that we’ve advocated for, such as repealing the ban on new nuclear power plants.

The House bill now goes to the state Senate, where the Senate energy bill is still under consideration by the Senate Finance committee. The Senate’s current version (SF 2393) runs over 51 pages, and does include policy provisions, but not the nuclear piece. Our own Sarah Montalbano has an analysis here.

I am taking no bets on where we go from here.