Mayor Frey vetoes carbon emission fee adopted by city council
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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey notified members of the City Council Wednesday that he vetoed the council’s recent adoption of fees on companies that are major carbon dioxide emitters.
Advocates say the fees aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by six percent in 2025 by funding programs that assist businesses in cutting their greenhouse gas output.
The city council recently voted to charge what they say are the 36 “largest emitters of carbon dioxide” and other greenhouse gasses, what they are calling a fee of $452 per ton of greenhouse gas emissions, based on a Pollution Control Annual Registration Program joint report.
Patrick Hanlon, the deputy commissioner of health with the Minneapolis Health Department, said more research needed to be done, and that was not necessarily the fee the department was going to introduce in 2026.
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“We were still evaluating that. And one of the pieces I want to add to this as well, is that we typically like to have outreach with stakeholders and the people that are impacted by the fees,” Hanlon said. “If you look at that list, there’s hospitals on there, there’s schools. We like to do outreach and let people know that these fees are coming and so that they have a chance to plan for them. That was another reason for waiting until 2026.”
Council member Robin Wonsley said the costs should be covered by emitters not taxpayers.
“We know carbon dioxide is coming from these 36 polluters. We do not have mitigation efforts in place,” Wonsley said. “This fee allows us, in addition to that FTE position, to finally put those mitigation protocols in place.”
Wonsley said the city already charges fees to businesses that use “environmentally harmful technologies or emit harmful air pollutants,” and added that she made it a point to add carbon dioxide to the list of pollutants.
“This was an idea that came from working class residents themselves, who urged city council to use all the tools that we have in our toolkit to help the city reach its climate equity goals as well as its carbon emissions reduction goals,” she said. “I worked with residents as well as the Frey administration and the city's legislative team for over a year to make that vision a reality.”
Frey said he supports the concept and mission, but criticized the lack of legal expertise in the proposed measure and said the action could constitute an unauthorized tax.
“There’s no disagreement whatsoever on the substantive issues here, we’re aligned,” Frey said. “The issue is that they chose performance over progress, and we can’t continue to do that. The issue is that they didn’t listen to people who have expertise.”
According to city rules, the 13-member council “shall” take up the mayor’s veto at the next regular council meeting. A two-thirds majority is needed to override the veto.