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More homes and gadgets will eventually run on electricity cranked out by wind turbines under an ambitious green energy standard approved by legislators. And smoky bars and restaurants will become history once a statewide smoking ban takes effect.
Those changes will reach most Minnesotans where they live — even more so than the disputes over spending and taxes that consumed lawmakers and Gov. Tim Pawlenty in the final hours before the Legislature adjourned Monday.
Many details of the state’s $34.7 billion two-year budget are still up in the air until Pawlenty finishes with the bills later this week. But lawmakers came up empty on some of their big goals going into the session — noticeable property tax relief, a permanent funding stream for outdoor and arts programs, and billions of dollars for roads.
The smoking ban and renewable energy push stood out as laws that will have long-lasting effect.
“It is the piece of legislation that the public has paid the most attention to and has been the most involved in,” said Sen. Kathy Sheran, the Mankato Democrat who sponsored the statewide smoking ban.
Lighting up in bars, restaurants and other workplaces will become illegal in a major cultural change that starts Oct. 1. Minnesota made history in 1975 by passing the first indoor smoking regulations, but the state is the 20th to ban smoking in bars and restaurants.
Sheran predicted that the ban will improve overall health in Minnesota over the long term and prompt more smokers to quit, cut back or get their nicotine fixes where others won’t inhale the fumes.
There may be less hot air inside bars, but more power from the outside air as the renewable energy law forces utilities to get more electricity from water, sun and other green sources.
“We’ve taken a 180 in the Legislature on environmental issues this year,” said Rep. Frank Moe, a Bemidji Democrat who teaches wilderness first aid when he’s not at the Capitol.
Wind power could take a big jump — from supplying 800 megawatts a year now to 5,000 to 6,000 megawatts by 2025, when most utilities will have to meet the green standard. The bar is even higher — 30 percent by 2020 — for Xcel Energy Inc., the state’s biggest electricity provider.
Advocates said the law not only put Minnesota at the national forefront of greening up its power, but was also approved with a slew of other conservation policies. They include the outlines of a plan to cap greenhouse gases, a down payment on cleaning up polluted waters, and a Great Lakes compact regulating commercial use of water from Lake Superior and the other lakes.
“This is going to affect every Minnesotan,” said Steve Morse, a former state senator who heads a coalition of environment and conservation groups. “That’s a big policy and directional shift.”
If Pawlenty signs an energy policy bill, consumers can also expect more nudges to turn off lights, turn down the thermostat, switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs and make sure their dwellings are insulated, as energy utilities try to reduce fossil fuel consumption.
With Democrats in control of the full Legislature for the first time in eight years, the focus shifted off abortion and a gay marriage ban to another flavor of social issues: Health care benefits for same-sex domestic partners, authorizing medical marijuana for severely ill patients, loosening the limits on stem cell research funds.
Yet in the end, none of those bills made it through the process — nor did a plan to provide in-state tuition rates to the foreign-born children of illegal immigrants.
But lawmakers did succeed in repealing a decades-old prohibition on ticket scalping, cracking down on body piercing artists who work on minors without parental consent, and banning fees and expiration dates on gift cards.
Not everybody was looking to new initiatives to measure success. First-term Rep. Steve Gottwalt, a St. Cloud Republican, counted “fiscal moderation” and a timely finish for the first time in four budget-setting sessions among the accomplishments.
“People have no idea what goes on here and they really don’t care,” said Gottwalt. “They’re going to get concerned if we don’t meet their needs, if we waste time. I think they are concerned about tax increases and spending increases. I don’t think they want to see us go into special session.”
