Governor, Legislature shouldn’t ignore Minnesota’s competitiveness

Innovation has built Minnesota s business sector and it depends on economic and regulatory certainty Given international and national trends innovation and certainty are more critical to grow Minnesota s market system now than ever before That s why in the final days of the legislative session a broad range of business labor and other economic champions of Minnesota are sounding the alarm The state is risking considerable future financing by not agreeing to and passing a tax bill that recognizes two emerging industries sustainable aviation fuel SAF and figures centers A review distributed last week from the Minnesota Chamber Foundation shows the importance of broad capital in future economic advancement Two billion megaprojects were declared for Minnesota in accounting for over of the state s total business capital venture commitments According to the summary These two proposed projects alone a SAF facility in Moorhead and a details center advancement in the south Metro plan to bring billion in new capital investments to the state These projects are still in proposal stages and final outcomes are not guaranteed However they represent among the largest expansions in the state s modern history should they come to fruition These projects would make Minnesota more economically competitive Each sector would mean further financing in the decades to come Politically speaking each has broad bipartisan advocacy Minnesota has been looked at as a SAF leader in the U S and around the world since it passed one of the first SAF tax credits in The state SAF tax credit enabled the newly created MN SAF Hub to make fast progress out of the gate in executing its strategy and helped give Minnesota an early lead in the global SAF race But other states are looking to seize on the economic progress opportunities related to SAF as well Since Minnesota took action in Illinois Washington Colorado Nebraska Arkansas and Iowa have all passed their own rule to promote a SAF commercial sector Minnesota is leading but the bipartisan SAF bill that has encouragement from both the agriculture and milieu communities is not guaranteed to pass and if it doesn t it would leave Minnesota to chase other states and lose our competitive edge It is a similar story when looking at evidence centers A broad coalition of businesses labor and environmental groups have worked together on material center provision that will incentivize the responsible growth of material centers while protecting the climate and ratepayers This same provision has been endorsed by a broad bipartisan coalition of legislators Just last fall Minnesota was touting itself as a leader in attracting these future instrument hubs to our state Our weather and atmosphere are advantages At the groundbreaking for a large-scale evidence center last year Gov Tim Walz stated Figures centers tour in packs they progress in groups and you get one and you get a big one And we d had more before And so we ll be more to this The evidence center tax incentive is scheduled to sunset and necessities to be extended and modernized in order to be competitive with our peer states such as Iowa North Dakota and Wisconsin Just last week Iowa released a multibillion-dollar evidence center assets Both SAF and facts centers mean jobs construction jobs high-tech jobs across diverse sectors of agriculture force AI and transportation throughout the entire state Elected functionaries at the capitol are putting these investments at hazard without taking action to help these industries in the tax bill In an era of polarization bipartisan decree is worth fighting for Fighting for jobs capital and a future tax base We won t stop working to keep investments coming to Minnesota We call on Gov Walz and leaders of both parties to prioritize our state s future economic opportunities in these industries Doug Loon president Minnesota Chamber of Commerce Darin Broton executive director Minnesota AgriGrowth and Tom Dicklich executive director Minnesota Building Trades The post Governor Legislature shouldn t ignore Minnesota s competitiveness appeared first on MinnPost