Tomorrow (Feb 14, 8:30am), the Minnesota House will meet to discuss Sustainable Infrastructure Policy. The agenda looks interesting:
- Presentation on the Minnesota Infrastructure Resilience Advisory Task Force report
- HF XXX (Koegel) establishing the Minnesota Advisory Council on Infrastructure; specifying office powers and duties; providing for implementation; requiring reports; appropriating money; proposing coding for new law as Minnesota Statutes, chapter 16F.*
Finding out about the meeting led me to the Infrastructure Resilience Advisory Task Force Final Report to the Minnesota Legislature, which was published last month (Jan 2024).
Here is the executive summary…
he Infrastructure Resilience Advisory Task Force was charged with evaluating issues related to coordination, sustainability, resiliency, and federal funding on state, local, and private infrastructure in the state. The Task Force has identified a number of opportunities to enhance our infrastructure’s longevity across the state and, therefore, is proposing the Minnesota Infrastructure Board to rectify these issues.
This board would be charged with defining and maintaining a vision for the future of Minnesota’s infrastructure that provides for proper management, coordination, and investment. The board will work in a non-regulatory capacity and in tandem with stakeholders to identify and promote best practices that will preserve and extend the longevity of Minnesota’s public and privately-owned infrastructure. The board will consist of fifteen non-voting members that are experts in an aspect of infrastructure and 11 voting members. The duties the board is charged with include, but are not limited to, electing a chair, hiring an executive director, identifying approaches to enhance and expedite infrastructure coordination across jurisdictions, agencies, state, and local government, and public and private sectors, including in planning, design, engineering, construction, maintenance, and operations, developing an educational program on asset management, and writing an annual report to the legislature.
With so much federal (and other) funding coming to the state for infrastructure, this sounds like a great opportunity. It sounds as if the group held a number of meetings and heard from local and national experts, which led the to recommend the Minnesota Infrastructure Board.