Revisor ID: R-04805
The MPCA has begun work to implement a groundbreaking new law to remedy Minnesotans’ disproportionate exposure to pollutants. The law defines environmental justice areas and requires the MPCA to conduct a rulemaking process to address the cumulative impacts of pollution during permitting processes.
Public hearing Sept. 1
Judge Kimberly Middendorf will conduct a public hearing on the MPCA's proposed rules by Webex on Sept. 1, 2026, beginning at 3 p.m. and continuing until at least 6 p.m.
For many neighborhoods and communities in Minnesota, decades-old permitting and zoning decisions by local, state, and federal governments have resulted in heavily polluting industrial and manufacturing facilities located near homes, schools, and parks.
As part of the law, the Legislature requires the MPCA to develop criteria for requiring a cumulative impact analysis and its content, define a substantial adverse environmental and health impact, establish the structure of a community benefits agreement and process, and ensure permit applicants have access to social and environmental factors, including elevated rates of disease, poor access to health insurance and medical care, and food insecurity.
These criteria, standards, agreements, and processes will be developed through the state’s thorough and lengthy rulemaking process.
Draft CI-MAP online tool
This tool compares 26 environmental and public health stressors for a given census tract to county and statewide averages. This tool is currently a draft; a new version will be published with the final rule. All numbers presented in this tool are subject to change.
Procedural rulemaking documents
July/August 2026
May 2026
These overview documents provide a high-level summary of the major steps of the Cumulative Impacts Rule proposed by the MPCA on May 18, 2026.
December 2025
The first public draft of the Cumulative impacts mapping and analysis platform (CI-MAP) was published in December 2025.
April 2025
Other resources and documents
MPCA staff have designed a template to assist residents of environmental justice areas in assembling a petition to request that the commissioner require a permit applicant to conduct a cumulative impacts analysis as directed by Minn. Stat. § 116.065, subd. 6(c)(5).
Rulemaking timeline and associated materials
| Dates | Task(s) |
|---|---|
| July 24, 2023 | Request for Comments published in the State Register |
| Spring 2024 | Playlist: Co-learning community conversations |
| June-November 2024 | Working sessions on key rule topics |
| February 2025 | Midpoint check-in webinars |
| April 21, 2025 | Second request for comments published in the State Register |
| May 2025 | |
| June 2025 | Draft concepts for the cumulative impacts analysis rules |
| July-October 2025 | Community benefits agreement community input panel
|
| Spring 2026 | Public comment presentations: |
| May 18, 2026 | Notice of hearing and proposed rule published in State Register |
| June 2, 2026 | Cumulative Impacts Rule informational webinar meeting resources posted in English, Spanish, Hmong, and Somali |
| Sept. 1, 2026 | Judge Kimberly Middendorf will conduct a public hearing by Webex on Sept. 1, 2026, beginning at 3 p.m. and continuing until at least 6 p.m. |
| Sept. 1-21, 2026 | The post-hearing comment period will be open for 20 days (until 4:30 p.m. on Sept. 21, 2026). |
| Sept. 22-28, 2026 | After the post-hearing comment period, there is a five-working-day rebuttal period (until 4:30 p.m. on Sept. 28, 2026) during which the MPCA and any interested person may respond in writing to any of the information already submitted, whether from other commenters or from the MPCA’s responses to comments. No one may submit new evidence during the rebuttal period. |
| TBD | Final adoption of rules |
Newly defined environmental justice areas
For the first time, the Legislature defined an environmental justice area in Minnesota law when it passed the 2023 cumulative impacts law. These areas are the focal points for developing Minnesota’s cumulative impact analysis criteria and processes for some air permit decisions. An environmental justice area is defined in statute as one or more census tracts — small, permanent subdivisions of a county or city — meeting any of the following criteria:
- 40% or more of the population is nonwhite
- 35% or more of the households have an income at or below 200% of poverty ($60,000 for a family of four)
- 40% or more of the population over the age of five has limited English proficiency
- located within Indian Country
The MPCA must use these criteria for the cumulative impact rulemaking, which only apply to the Twin Cities seven-county metro area and the cities of Duluth and Rochester. The MPCA has developed maps that show these environmental justice areas and one-mile buffer zones.
An updated statewide list of facilities that may be impacted by this rulemaking has been developed, although the criteria and process to determine if a facility needs additional environmental analysis have not been created.
The statewide map of environmental justice areas was updated in September 2024.