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The Environmental Quality Board (EQB) is completing a legislatively mandated report on the environmental review mandatory categories. This report is required to be completed by EQB and member agencies every three years.

2021 Mandatory Category Report

Below you will find a table which contains information about each Mandatory Category including:

Process and timeline:

For this report, EQB sought input on if environmental review mandatory categories should be modified, eliminated or unchanged. Minnesotan's opportunity to help EQB assess the effectiveness of environmental review mandatory categories. 

Minnesota rules identify project types that are required to provide information about potential environmental effects. These are called mandatory categories. The following links provide more information about mandatory categories: Minnesota Rules chapter 4410.4300 (mandatory categories requiring preparation of an environmental assessment worksheet) and 4410.4400 (mandatory categories requiring preparation of an environmental impact statement).

  • June: Seeking feedback from responsible government units (local government units, state agencies)
  • July: Seeking feedback from public who’ve participated in EQB petitions for environmental review
  • August: Compiling results, holding interagency meetings with state agency RGUs, phone interviews with local government unit RGUs, discussions with Environmental Justice thought leaders.
  • September: Compiling results, holding interagency meetings with state agency RGUs, phone interviews with local government unit RGUs, discussions with Environmental Justice thought leaders.
  • October: Drafting report
  • November: EQB public board meeting
  • December: submit report to Legislature

 

Legislative mandate

In 2017, the legislative directive was amended and included in Minnesota Statute Chapter 116D.04 Subd. 5b: “By December 1, 2018, and every three years thereafter, the Environmental Quality Board, Pollution Control Agency, Department of Natural Resources, and Department of Transportation, after consultation with political subdivisions, shall submit to the governor and the chairs of the house of representatives and senate committees having jurisdiction over environment and natural resources a list of mandatory environmental assessment worksheet and mandatory environmental impact statement categories for which the agency or a political subdivision is designated as the responsible government unit, and for each worksheet or statement category, a document including:

  1. intended historical purposes of the category;

  2. whether projects that fall within the category are also subject to local, state, or federal permits; and

  3. an analysis of and recommendations for whether the mandatory category should be modified, eliminated, or unchanged based on its intended outcomes and relationship to existing permits or other federal, state, or local laws or ordinances.”