What the legislative auditor will -- and won't -- investigate about a key PolyMet permit
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Minnesota courts are investigating allegations that state regulators hid flaws with a crucial water permit won by Minnesota’s first copper-nickel mine.
In response to the controversy over PolyMet, state lawmakers have also opted to investigate. And to do so, they’re using a favorite tool to make sense of divisive issues: the Office of the Legislative Auditor.
State Rep. Rick Hansen, a South St. Paul DFLer who chairs the Legislative Audit Commission, asked auditor Jim Nobles in late June to scrutinize whether the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency broke from policy or law when it approved PolyMet’s permit in 2018.
The step is noteworthy for a Legislature that includes many PolyMet supporters from both political parties. Yet for now, key political leaders, including Gov. Tim Walz, are only questioning the MPCA’s regulatory process, not its final product. Environmental advocates, on the other hand, have used the investigations to bolster a legal challenge to PolyMet that argues the $1 billion project near Hoyt Lakes could pollute the St. Louis River Watershed and Lake Superior.
Read more: https://www.minnpost.com/environment/2019/07/what-the-legislative-auditor-will-and-wont-investigate-about-a-key-polymet-permit/