Soil scientist Gyles Randall calls it the “broom handle” effect. That’s when a corn field has been shaved clean: stalks, leaves, the whole nine yards — all the way to the stubble, leaving a field with a sparse, bristly look. There’s a whole lot of bare soil between those broom handles, and not much organic matter. “That scares the bejeebers out of me,” Randall, who regularly monitors cropland erosion and fertilizer runoff in southern Minnesota, told me recently. Crew-cut cornfields are just one possible response to an inescapable fact: we simply cannot raise enough corn in this country to meet our seemingly insatiable thirst for fuel. (more…)

This week’s update from lobbyist John Tuma:

“Raise less corn and more hell.”
Mary Elizabeth Lease, 1890*

Mary Elizabeth Lease was one of the most passionate voices of the prairie populist movement of the late 1800s.  She hailed from Kansas, but her message burned through the populist movement up and down the entire Midwest.  This message took root the deepest in the farm areas and union halls of Minnesota, giving birth to the Farmer-Labor movement.  Though this red-hot flame of progressive thought burned out more quickly in some areas, it grew very strong in Minnesota.  It hit its zenith in the 1930s with the election of Minnesota’s first and most productive third-party governor, Floyd B. Olson.

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Special mid-week Capitol Update from lobbyist John Tuma:

“We live in a political world.
Where wisdom is thrown into jail.”
Bob Dylan (aka Robert Zimmerman from Hibbing, MN)
Oh Mercy, 2003

The governor’s veto of the capital investments bill caught most of the Capitol watchers by surprise.  Not so much that he vetoed the bill but the manner in which he did it.  Given the fact that we are living in a “political world” up at the Capitol, it is just another twist in the ever-changing march to the end of session.  Nonetheless, it created an interesting change in the drama, which is something the governor has learned to do so well over the years. (more…)

By Art Allen, Communications Assistant 

When the governor line-item-vetoed nearly all funding for transit in this year’s bonding bill, he line-item-vetoed his own desire for fiscal responsibility and economic growth in the state of Minnesota.

The veto is the latest in a string of the Governor’s attacks on transit funding. In addition to eliminating state funding to build Central Corridor, the Governor cut funding for nearly every transit project outlined in the Met Council’s regional transit plan. Earlier this year, the Governor slashed funding almost 40 percent of the general fund allocation to transit, a cut nearly 10 times greater than cuts to other general fund allocations.

Symbolic or not, the Governor’s actions put the entire region at risk: transit projects are, rightly or wrongly, one of the most scrutinized destinations of public funding, and every penny is agonized over. Even delaying this funding one year will cost as much as $40 million, not to mention the half a billion dollars in matching funds in federal money that Minnesota now stands to lose.

The Governor’s actions leave the Twin Cities region with two options: wait a year (or more) to get the ball rolling on Central Corridor (and, by doing so, increase project costs by $40 million), or scrap the project all together.
The future of Central Corridor is in the Governor’s hands. He needs to demonstrate his public promises to prioritize Central Corridor during this legislative session were made in good faith.

by Daryl Sager, energy justice program associate, Fresh Energy

Have you noticed that more and more stories about renewable energy are making headlines these days? I’ve read two great examples lately, one in Minnesota and the other in Arizona, both about increases in wind production. (more…)

This week’s update from lobbyist John Tuma:

“He came here the other day and talked with me about the rascality of this Indian business until I felt it down to my boots. If we get through this war, and I live, this Indian system shall be reformed.”
Abraham Lincoln, 1862*

The person Abraham Lincoln referred to in this quote was Minnesota’s first Episcopal Bishop Henry Whipple who resided in Faribault. Immediately upon Whipple’s arrival here in 1859, he recognized the corruption and abuse that was taking place in the “business” that had developed around Native American relations. It was his fearless advocacy against this corruption that earned him the nickname “Straight Tongue” from the local Sioux Native Americans who still inhabited the lake areas around Faribault, Minnesota.

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Big news for transit at the county level! Yesterday, three more counties voted in favor of supporting a quarter cent sales tax to implement new transitways. Hennepin, Dakota, and Washington now join Anoka and Ramsey counties in voting to levy the tax.

Dakota County supported the move in a 5-2 vote, with strong statements of support from the majority Commissioners about how transit is becoming more important to Dakota County, particularly its role in relieving traffic congestion and addressing the needs of seniors who can’t drive. (more…)