Lawmakers debate whether bioscience merits special break
April 24, 2006
Pioneer Press
BY BILL SALISBURY
While a plan to construct a University of Minnesota football stadium was grabbing headlines and sparking water cooler conversations in recent weeks, another university building request that could make a far bigger hit on Minnesota's economy has been quietly marching through the Legislature.
The U wants $366 million to build five bioscience research laboratories in the next 10 years.
The big question lawmakers must answer is whether to make a 10-year commitment to construct all five buildings. That would break with the legislative tradition of requiring the university and all state agencies to ask for construction money one building at a time in bonding bills passed every two years.
University officials, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, legislative leaders and biotech industry executives all agree the research done at these facilities would produce medical and scientific breakthroughs that promote health, save lives and give rise to dozens of new businesses and thousands of jobs.
"I think this is an investment in the future of the biosciences industry in the state of Minnesota," Dr. Frank Cerra, the university's senior vice president for health sciences, said last week.
The Legislature is likely to at least make a down payment on the project this spring. The House and Senate have passed bonding bills that provide $40 million for the first of the five research buildings. The U would be required to contribute $20 million for the facility.
"It was the most important project in the bonding bill," said Senate Capital Investment Committee Chairman Keith Langseth, DFL-Glyndon. "I think it's our future."
Under the U's plan, the Legislature would create a separate Biomedical Sciences Research Authority and authorize it to issue $330 million in general obligation debt through bonding to finance the lab buildings. The authority could finance construction of one building every two years.
Bills to create the nine-member authority are ready for quick legislative action, said the sponsors, Sen. Richard Cohen, DFL-St. Paul, and Rep. Ron Abrams, R-Minnetonka. "I hope we can get a jump-start" from Pawlenty and House and Senate leaders of both parties to get the bills moving, Abrams said.
Here's the rub for some legislators: The $330 million under the authority's control would count against the state's borrowing limit for other projects.
House Capital Investment Committee Chairman Dan Dorman, R-Albert Lea, enthusiastically supports building the labs, but he questions whether they should get special treatment in the bonding process.
"Why should we put them at the front of the line ahead of every other bonding project?" he asked. That would require the Legislature to "give up its rightful role" of setting construction priorities.
This university project needs the kind of long-term commitment that the current bonding process doesn't provide, Cerra said, because it takes several years to recruit top-shelf researchers and design and build technologically sophisticated labs.
"We need the ability to plan in a stable environment," he said. The U couldn't guarantee that stability if it had to go back to the Legislature every two years to request funding for the next building.
He said the state needs to make a commitment to the project now to compete with fast-growing bioscience initiatives on the East and West coasts and worldwide.
The competition is fierce. More than a dozen states already have started big scientific research programs. California voters approved spending $3 billion on stem cell research. Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle launched a $750 million initiative, with more than half the money earmarked for biomedical research facilities at the University of Wisconsin.
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