Minnesota has joined the rest of the United States — finally — in meeting federal standards on state driver’s licenses to board domestic flights. The Legislature on Wednesday approved a bill to comply with the 2005 federal Real ID Act, which includes a 2018 deadline for upgraded IDs. Real ID is aimed at combating terrorism and identify fraud. Gov. Mark Dayton signed the bill on Thursday.

It was close. On Friday, Dayton asked the FCC for another extension on the January 2018 deadline, until January 2020, for having a Real ID to get on an airline flight. The state will begin issuing the Real IDs next year.

We suppose congratulations are in order to state lawmakers, who have struggled with Real ID for years, refusing for a while to even let state officials talk to the federal government about it. One concern was federal overreach. Another involves whether to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants in Minnesota. The latter of those two concerns has been broken out into a separate bill, so Real ID could move ahead, thus preventing any possible travel disruptions for Minnesotans.

So, in the end, it probably took too long for Minnesota to get this matter resolved, but the federal mandate had to be met, like it or not. We believe Real ID has benefits and any bugs in the system can be worked out or reformed over time.