John Tuma’s Capitol Update – March 12, 2010

“Charge those lines!”
- General Winfield Scott Hancock, Gettysburg, July 2, 1863

That was the command given to Colonel Colvill of the Minnesota 1st in the midst of the second day of fighting outside of the previously unknown and sleepy hamlet of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  Colvill, along with only a portion of the famed Minnesota 1st Regiment of 262 men, had just arrived on the battlefield after an arduous 20-mile march toward the sound of the developing battle.  Upon their arrival on the scene, Union forces were in chaos along the soon to become hallowed grounds known as Cemetery Ridge south of Gettysburg.  Sixteen hundred Confederates from Alabama, under the command of Gen. Cadmus Wilcox, moving quickly to take the high ground along this important place on the battlefield. (more…)

John Tuma’s Capitol Update – February 26, 2010

“There is magic in the feel of a paddle and the movement of a canoe, a magic compounded of distance, adventure, solitude, and peace.  The way of a canoe is the way of the wilderness and of a freedom almost forgotten.  It is an antidote to insecurity, the open door to waterways in ages past and a way of life with profound and abiding satisfaction.  When a man is part of his canoe, he is part of all that canoes have ever known.”

-Sigurd F. Olson, The Singing Wilderness, 1956

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John Tuma’s Capitol Update – The Summer Version

Lobbyist John Tuma tells the second half of the story of Benny Ambrose, a legendary Boundary Waters woodsman who learned the wilderness was more precious than gold.
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News from Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness:

The PolyMet mine site was identified as important habitat by the Forest Service and the DNR in the late 1990s, as part of the Superior National Forest Plan revision process.

For more information, visit the Friends website.

The sulfide mining industry argues that if its mining is not done in our state, it will be done elsewhere. Such an argument misses the point. Minnesota should not engage in a race to the bottom, loosening safeguards and letting industry have its way with our clean water. While we certainly should not hide our polluting industries in Third World countries, we ought to demand that if they operate here in Minnesota, they operate with the very highest level of protections for our water and our tax dollars. (more…)

Check out the debating skills of Len Anderson when he went toe-to-toe with Frank Ongaro (Executive Director of MiningMinnesota) over the Safe Mines to Protect Our Water legislation that was introduced in the Minnesota State Legislature last week.  (more…)