By Ethan Fawley, transportation connections coordinator, Fresh Energy

Yesterday, a coalition of 29 different environmental groups presented a 391-page report to President-elect Obama’s transition team. The Transition to Green (pdf) report highlights priority environmental policy recommendations for Obama’s team to consider as they lay the groundwork for the new Administration. (more…)

As this blog has made clear in the past, the 2008 Farm Bill is far from perfect. But buried in the status-quo quagmire are a few gems like the newly revamped Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). (more…)

By J. Drake Hamilton, science policy director, Fresh Energy

This November, Americans delivered a powerful message to Washington: it’s time for change. (more…)

by Michael Noble, executive director, Fresh Energy

As Washington DC debates whether to bail out Detroit, there is a third position other than “yes” and “no.”

I am firmly in the third camp, which I call, “if and only if.” (more…)

Farmer Mike Gilles has a succinct way of describing what a mess the 2008 Minnesota Legislature made of the popular Green Acres program: “Pretty much it’s a slap in the face to anyone who is conservation-minded.” It’s a slap that could leave bruises on the state’s landscape for decades to come. (more…)

By Ron Meador, media relations director, Fresh Energy

Minnesota’s sales-tax amendment was one among several green-minded ballot measures around the country that won approval in Tuesday’s elections. (more…)

Recent charges that the MPCA has been giving proposers of an Olmsted County ethanol plant most favored customer status need to be taken seriously: putting up a facility that will pump millions of gallons of water out of karst aquifers is no laughing matter. And it’s not just the direct environmental impacts of this facility that warrant scrutiny. One indirect impact of a giant ethanol plant in the region—more corn on the landscape—is of particular concern at a time when corn fertilizer pollution is already a major problem in the region. (more…)