Minnesota Session Laws - 1988, Regular Session

  

                         Laws of Minnesota 1988 

                        CHAPTER 664-S.F.No. 1900 
           An act relating to the metropolitan airports 
          commission; setting the borrowing authority of the 
          commission; providing for commission purposes, 
          environmental review, and reports; amending Minnesota 
          Statutes 1986, sections 473.602; and 473.667, 
          subdivision 2; proposing coding for new law in 
          Minnesota Statutes, chapter 473. 
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA: 
    Section 1.  Minnesota Statutes 1986, section 473.602, is 
amended to read:  
    473.602 [DECLARATION OF PURPOSES.] 
    It is the purpose of sections 473.601 to 473.679 to: 
    (1) promote the public welfare and national security; serve 
public interest, convenience, and necessity; promote air 
navigation and transportation, international, national, state, 
and local, in and through this state; promote the efficient, 
safe, and economical handling of air commerce; assure the 
inclusion of this state in national and international programs 
of air transportation; and to those ends to develop the full 
potentialities of the metropolitan area in this state as an 
aviation center, and to correlate that area with all aviation 
facilities in the entire state so as to provide for the most 
economical and effective use of aeronautic facilities and 
services in that area; 
    (2) assure the residents of the metropolitan area of the 
minimum environmental impact from air navigation and 
transportation, and to that end provide for noise abatement, 
control of airport area land use, and other protective measures; 
and 
    (3) promote the overall goals of the state's environmental 
policies and minimize the public's exposure to noise and safety 
hazards around airports. 
    To this end achieve these purposes, the corporation shall 
cooperate with and assist the metropolitan council, the Federal 
government, the commissioner of transportation of this state, 
the pollution control agency, and others engaged in aeronautics 
or the promotion and regulation of aeronautics and shall seek to 
coordinate its activities with the aeronautical activities of 
these bodies. 
    Sec. 2.  [473.614] [ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW.] 
    Subdivision 1.  [CAPITAL PLAN; ENVIRONMENTAL 
ASSESSMENTS.] The commission shall prepare an assessment of the 
environmental effects of projects in the commission's seven-year 
capital improvement program and plan at each airport owned and 
operated by the commission.  The assessment must examine the 
cumulative environmental effects at each airport of the projects 
at that airport, considered collectively.  The commission need 
not prepare an assessment for an airport when the capital 
improvement program and plan for that airport has not changed 
from the one adopted the previous year or when the changes in 
the program and plan will have only trivial environmental 
effects. 
    Subd. 2.  [CAPITAL PROGRAM; ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT 
WORKSHEETS.] (a) The commission shall prepare environmental 
assessment worksheets under Minnesota Statutes, chapter 116D, 
and rules issued pursuant thereto, on the environmental effects 
of projects in the commission's capital improvement program at 
each airport owned and operated by the commission.  The scope of 
the environmental assessment worksheets required by this section 
is limited to only those projects in the program for an airport 
that meet all of the following conditions: 
    (1) The project is scheduled in the program for the 
succeeding calendar period. 
    (2) The project is scheduled in the program for the 
expenditure of $5,000,000 or more at Minneapolis-St. Paul 
International Airport or $2,000,000 or more at any other airport.
    (3) The project involves:  (i) the construction of a new or 
expanded structure for handling passengers, cargo, vehicles, or 
aircraft; or (ii) the construction of a new or the extension of 
an existing runway or taxiway. 
     After adopting its capital program, the commission may 
amend the program by adding or changing a project without 
amending or redoing the worksheets required by this subdivision, 
if the project to be added or the change to be made is one that 
the commission could not reasonably have foreseen at the time 
that it completed the worksheets. 
    (b) For the purpose of determining the need for an 
environmental impact statement, the commission shall consider 
the projects included in the scope of a worksheet as a single 
project and shall assess their environmental effects 
collectively and cumulatively.  The commission's decision on 
whether an environmental impact statement is needed must be 
based on the worksheet and comments.  The commission may not 
base a decision that an environmental impact statement is not 
needed on exemptions of projects in state or federal rules.  The 
commission is not required to prepare an environmental impact 
statement on an individual project, or to include a project in 
the scope of an environmental impact statement that the 
commission determines is needed, if the project is shown in the 
worksheet to have trivial environmental effects or if an 
environmental impact statement on the project has been 
determined to be adequate under state law. 
    (c) The commission may incorporate into worksheets 
information from the commission's long-range plans, 
environmental assessments prepared under subdivision 1, or other 
environmental documents prepared on projects under state or 
federal law. 
    Subd. 3.  [PROCEDURE.] (a) The environmental assessments 
required under subdivision 1 and the environmental assessment 
worksheets required under subdivision 2 must be prepared each 
year before the commission adopts its capital improvement plan 
and program. 
    (b) The commission shall hold a public hearing on each 
environmental assessment and worksheet before adopting the 
capital improvement plan and program.  The commission may 
consolidate hearings. 
    (c) The initial environmental assessments and worksheets 
must be completed before the commission adopts its capital 
improvement plan and program for calendar years 1989 to 1995, 
but the initial assessments and worksheets must extend to and 
incorporate projects under construction in calendar year 1988.  
A project that is under construction in 1988 may proceed, but 
the project must be included in the environmental review 
required by this section as if the project were scheduled for 
the succeeding calendar year.  The commission is not required to 
prepare an environmental impact statement on an individual 
project, or to include a project in the scope of an 
environmental impact statement that the commission determines is 
needed, if:  (1) the project is under construction in 1988, or 
(2) on the effective date of this act the project is included in 
the commission's capital program for 1988 and 1989 and an 
environmental review is under way on the project individually 
under state or federal law. 
    Subd. 4.  [OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW.] Nothing in this 
section limits the responsibility of the commission or any other 
governmental unit or agency, under any other law or regulation, 
to conduct environmental review of any project, decision, or 
recommendation, except that the environmental assessment 
worksheets prepared under subdivision 2 satisfy the requirements 
under state law or rule for environmental assessment worksheets 
on individual projects covered by the worksheets prepared under 
subdivision 2. 
    Sec. 3.  Minnesota Statutes 1986, section 473.667, 
subdivision 2, is amended to read:  
    Subd. 2.  [BORROWING AUTHORIZATION.] No additional bonds 
shall be issued under the provisions of section 473.665, over 
and above the amount outstanding April 1, 1974.  Except for 
refunding bonds and certificates of indebtedness, the principal 
amount of bonds that may be issued under this section, over and 
above the amount of bonds of the commission outstanding January 
15, 1981 1988, is limited to $92,000,000 $150,000,000 until and 
unless this limitation is increased by law.  The pledge of 
revenues of the commission to its debt service fund in lieu of 
the taxes otherwise required by section 473.665 to be assessed 
and extended shall be and remain a first charge on all current 
revenues of the commission to the extent required annually to 
cancel such taxes.  
     Sec. 4.  [REPORT.] 
    The commission shall report to the legislature by January 
1, 1989, on the conditions that it has attached or proposes to 
attach to action on projects in its capital improvement plan, 
for the purpose of advancing the commission's noise control 
program at airports owned and operated by the commission. 
    Sec. 5.  [EFFECTIVE DATE; APPLICATION.] 
    This act is effective the day following final enactment and 
applies in the counties of Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, 
Ramsey, Scott and Washington. 
    Approved April 26, 1988