By Kate Ellis, senior policy associate, Fresh Energy

An analysis recently released by McKinsey and Company called “The U.S. Low Carbon Economics Tool” provides in-depth macroeconomic modeling of different scenarios of possible energy and climate policies. With the recent release of the American Power Act, an analysis of this type is invaluable for better understanding the implications of different policy measures as well as the economic impact of inaction. With this tool we can better understand the changes to jobs, gross domestic product (GDP), energy prices, taxes, energy demand, and industry cost structure in relation to different policies. (more…)

John Tuma’s Capitol Update for May 18, 2010

“I rolled off the pony in a heap.  I staggered toward the stockade gate and fell headlong through the door of a house, where I lay in a stupor for hours.”
- Sam Brown, Fort Wadsworth, Dakota Territory, 1866

Sam Brown was a legendary frontiersman.  He was the son of Major Joseph R. Brown, for whom Browns Valley was named.  That valley lies between the headwaters of the Red and Minnesota Rivers on the western border of Minnesota; right at the tip of that little bump you see on the state map on our western border.

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John Tuma’s Capitol Update for May 14, 2010

“It’s very confusing, and very wonderful.  People disagree, they get angry — and they do it in public and nobody dies.”
- Idil Abdull, May 11, 2010

On Wednesday, Warren Wolfe of the Star Tribune provided us with one of the more pleasant stories from the State Capitol, that of 36-year-old Somali-born Idil Abdull.   She is a citizen lobbyist from Burnsville working to make some changes in a bill to protect Somali autistic children.  “Lobby of one: Making sense of Legislature” provides an interesting perspective of our American legislative experiment in democracy, Minnesota style, through the eyes of a newcomer to our land of immigrants.  Ms. Abdull provides us with a refreshingly honest citizen’s perspective. 

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John Tuma’s Capitol Update – Supplemental Edition for May 11, 2010

Did you know that May 11 is Statehood Day in Minnesota?  This is the day Congress ratified Minnesota’s acceptance into the Union back in 1858.  The great state of Minnesota is 152 years old today.  In typical historical fashion, the Minnesota legislative session is in the midst of its traditional end of session train wreck this rainy and gloomy Statehood Day.  Here is a brief update on where the Minnesota Environmental Partnership’s (MEP) legislative priority issues are on this Tuesday morning as the session careens to its sudden end.

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John Tuma’s Capitol Update – May 7, 2010

“The administration of government has become more complex.”
- US Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, June 1, 1931

Every aspiring attorney throughout this land of the free has to read in their constitutional law class this quote from the opinion in the landmark federal Supreme Court decision of Near v. Minnesota, which is viewed as a foundational case for the freedom of press. “Landmark decisions” are the rare cases that are truly game changers on our political or social fields of competition. Minnesota was the birthplace of the set of circumstances that gave birth to this great landmark decision regarding the freedom of press.

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By Elena Velkov, media relations coordinator, Fresh Energy

Just off of mainland and in the Gulf of Mexico, my family has a home on Lido Key in Sarasota, Florida. We’ve never taken for granted how fortunate we are to have a beautiful beach as our backyard, but it isn’t always a vacation. Though infrequent, residents of our coast have experienced hurricane evacuations, red tide, and even shark attacks. And now, we have an oil spill. (more…)

John Tuma’s Capitol Update – April 29, 2010

“He advocated a constitutional amendment to limit state spending increases to no more than inflation plus 1%. Grunseth saw this as a way to distinguish his candidacy from the others. At this time all the candidates were sounding the same basic themes. All were pro-life (for now), pro-environment, pro-education.”

- Leon Oistad and David Hoium, There Is No November, 1991*

In 1990 Minnesota experienced one of the most bizarre gubernatorial elections in its history. The campaign of Republican-endorsed candidate John Grunseth melted down in the midst of allegations of sexual impropriety. Grunseth withdrew only 12 days prior to the election, resulting in Arne Carlson being placed on the ballot as the Republican candidate after a second-place finish in the primary, allowing him to go on to eventually win the election. Carlson’s victory was due in part to DFL Governor Rudy Perpich’s campaign having become tainted with the negative attacks against Grunseth in the last month of the election, even though it was revealed after the election that most of the negative Grunseth information was dug up and spread around by Carlson’s campaign operatives.

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

Wondering how decision makers are doing on creating rules for a low carbon economy? In 2007, the Minnesota legislature passed the Next Generation Energy Act, including setting science-based goals for global warming pollution reductions in Minnesota. We need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the economy by at least 30 percent by 2025, and 80 percent by 2050. The state’s Climate Change Advisory Group recommended actions needed to meet those reduction targets; in November, citizens will elect a new legislature and governor that will be responsible for enacting – or not enacting – the policy actions needed to unleash Minnesota’s clean energy jobs potential. At the federal level, in 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an economy-wide limit on carbon pollution. Now in spring 2010, the U.S. Senate may be ready to act on a comprehensive energy and climate bill to address this urgent economic and environmental issue. (more…)

John Tuma’s Capitol Update – April 23, 2010

“The time has arrived for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights. . . our land is now, more than ever before, the last best hope on earth.  I know that we can . . . begin here the fuller and richer realization of that hope – that promise – of a land where all men are truly free and equal . . .”

- Hubert H. Humphrey, 1948 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, PA

In the American political and governing structure, party conventions often become the critical moment in time that set in course great changes in the history of our nation and become launching pads for great political careers.  In 1948, the Democratic National Convention that gathered during the second week of July, in typical midsummer hot, steamy East Coast weather, was a convention that changed the structure of our national political landscape and helped launch the career of one of Minnesota’s greatest political leaders.

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John Tuma’s Capitol Update – March 26, 2010

“Peculiar haze, or smokey fog … unlike anything known within the memory of man.”
- English naturalist Gilbert White, Summer 1783

Natural events in history can sometimes produce a set of coincidences which play out over the years leaving one perplexed at the twist of fate. One of those unusual twists of nature was the eruption of Iceland’s Laki Volcano in 1783. Through a series of coincidences, this faraway volcanic eruption may be in part responsible for the existence of the State of Minnesota.

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