Minneapolis City Council overrides mayor’s veto on carbon fees

Minneapolis City Council members declared victory on what they see as urgent action to address the climate crisis by overriding a mayoral veto on carbon emission fees.

The measure introduced by Ward 2 Council Member Robin Wonsley will charge businesses $452 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Mayor Jacob Frey vetoed the 2025 license fee schedule after its initial passage earlier this month, advising that it was the city attorney’s opinion that the city had no legal authority to charge a fee without an accompanying ordinance requiring registration or an established regulatory program.

“In other words, the thing you want to do we can’t do because of your actions,” Frey wrote to the council. “Imposing a carbon dioxide PCAR [pollution control annual registration] fee without basing it on program costs risks the City being faced with a lawsuit we would surely lose.”

Frey said that while he supports the idea of fees attached to pollution, he disagreed with council members’ methods, saying they “refused to listen to expert staff” when developing this policy.

A 9-2 council supermajority overrode Frey’s veto on Thursday.

To allay some of the Frey administration’s concerns, the City Council pushed back the implementation date from January 31 to July 1 and put forth a resolution to establish funds within the Health Department to regulate a PCAR program for CO₂ equivalents. Council members also directed the city to complete a study of carbon fees in case the rate needs to be updated before implementation.

“Climate change is an emergency,” Wonsley said in a statement. “… Since 2021, Minneapolis residents have organized to demand that Council pass a fee on carbon emissions, a major contributor to climate change. I’m proud that the Council took action that will help remove about 605 tons of carbon emissions from the atmosphere next year alone, and that the big polluters will cover the cost of the program, not working-class residents.”

In a statement, a spokesman for Frey called the veto override “purely performative.”

“Following the veto, the Council immediately had to clean up the mess that they made. They quickly changed what they voted on, pushed back the effective date of the fee, and acknowledged that the fee they had set would have to change,” the spokesman said.  

“We all agree on attaching fees to pollution. Our only ask was to do it the right way and the Council is now scrambling to make that happen.”