Governor, Legislature shouldn’t ignore Minnesota’s competitiveness

Innovation has built Minnesota s economic system and it depends on economic and regulatory certainty Given international and national trends innovation and certainty are more critical to grow Minnesota s economic 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 major future assets by not agreeing to and passing a tax bill that recognizes two emerging industries sustainable aviation fuel SAF and facts centers A statement published last week from the Minnesota Chamber Foundation shows the importance of broad commitment in future economic evolution Two billion megaprojects were communicated for Minnesota in accounting for over of the state s total business capital funding commitments According to the record These two proposed projects alone a SAF facility in Moorhead and a details center growth 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 fresh history should they come to fruition These projects would make Minnesota more economically competitive Each sector would mean further stake in the decades to come Politically speaking each has broad bipartisan endorsement 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 improvement opportunities related to SAF as well Since Minnesota took action in Illinois Washington Colorado Nebraska Arkansas and Iowa have all passed their own measure to promote a SAF financial market Minnesota is leading but the bipartisan SAF bill that has encouragement from both the agriculture and surroundings 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 content centers A broad coalition of businesses labor and environmental groups have worked together on figures center regulation that will incentivize the responsible evolution of material centers while protecting the context and ratepayers This same measure has been endorsed by a broad bipartisan coalition of legislators Just last fall Minnesota was touting itself as a leader in attracting these future system hubs to our state Our weather and circumstances are advantages At the groundbreaking for a large-scale records center last year Gov Tim Walz stated Evidence centers advance in packs they advance 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 material center tax incentive is scheduled to sunset and requirements 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 informed a multibillion-dollar statistics center outlay Both SAF and material centers mean jobs construction jobs high-tech jobs across diverse sectors of agriculture potency AI and transportation throughout the entire state Elected leaders at the capitol are putting these investments at pitfall without taking action to patronage these industries in the tax bill In an era of polarization bipartisan bill 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