MN-04: Stuff about Rep. McCollum

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) has been getting some press lately for her new gig as Chair of the Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, and what she might do with that. But I’m taking the opportunity to pass this along, that I’ve been hanging onto for a while.

In that basement hotel ballroom, though, there was still uncertainty when Rep. McCollum rose to speak. She outlined Israel's new “nation-state” law. Most of the audience was already familiar with the law, and how it had turned the country’s longstanding discriminatory practices designed to privilege Jews and disempower Palestinians, into an official component of Israel's Basic Law: the equivalent of a constitutional amendment. But would she say the whole truth? Four or five hundred people were sitting on the edge of their chairs.

“The world has a name for the form of government that is codified in the Nation-State Law,” she said. “It is called ‘apartheid.’” There was a collective gasp, and the audience, many in tears, leaped to their feet in a massive ovation. - In These Times

Here's an election guide for what’s coming up in Israel, scheduled for April 7. The general feeling seems to be that voters won’t go for a lot of turnover. But there’s always hope.

MN-08: Stauber hits the ground working hard for Big Sulfide Mining

To be fair, too many politicians in Minnesota, from both parties, don’t have their heads right on this either. But since I live in MN-08, and now have to endure the humiliation of Republican representation in the U.S. House for one of only a few times in my life (by the luck of the draw I’ve almost always lived in blue districts), damn right I’ll be picking on Pete.

(Jan. 14), Congressman Pete Stauber (MN-08) introduced H.R. 527, the Superior National Forest Land Exchange Act of 2019. This bipartisan legislation provides legal certainty by codifying the land exchange between PolyMet Mining, Inc. and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) into statute. The legislation will move PolyMet one step closer to responsibly developing the NorthMet ore body located in northeastern Minnesota. This is Stauber’s first bill introduced as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. - stauber.house.gov

From the sane, rational side of the issue, in a press release emailed Tuesday:

Today, the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA), along with the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Sierra Club, filed legal challenges to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s permits for the PolyMet sulfide mine proposal. 

In their challenge to the air permit, the conservation and environmental groups describe how MPCA repeatedly ignored evidence that PolyMet has engaged in a bait and switch scheme.  In its air permit, PolyMet agreed to limit the amount of ore processed daily to keep its emissions of particulate matter under certain levels and to avoid having to install the best available emission control technology. However, PolyMet has already signaled that it intends to process ore at a much faster rate, resulting in significantly increased emissions. PolyMet should be required to install the best air emission technology available prior to construction, not avoid this vital Clean Air Act review through sham permitting. - MCEA

Renewables, in Minnesota and everywhere

A couple of items.

The Minnesota Department of Commerce, clean energy advocates, and all the state’s major utilities over the past three years developed the Solar Potential Analysis Report. (Fresh Energy, which publishes the Energy News Network, was among the stakeholders that participated in the process.)

The report, published in November, concludes that Minnesota could get 70 percent of its electricity from wind and solar by 2050 at no additional cost compared to natural gas. Instead of batteries to balance the variable generation, it suggests that overbuilding wind and solar capacity would be more economical. The model calls for reaching up to 22 gigawatts capacity each for wind and solar power. - Energy News Network

I would just add that there likely will be breakthroughs in battery and other storage technology over the next few decades. Anyway, looking beyond Minnesota:

Cheaper prices of natural gas and renewable energy have impacted the competitiveness of more traditional generation fuels.

Renewable additions are projected to more than double gas in 2019. Last year, natural gas capacity additions outpaced renewable energy additions for the first time since 2013. 2018 was also a landmark year for new capacity additions, as EIA expected nearly 32 GW of new capacity — the most in a decade. - Utility Dive

Trump policies are devastating for farmers, but will that change how they vote?

Despite the news about calling people back in to process loans - a wholly inadequate “fix” if there ever was one - it’s ugly, and it’s going to stay that way.

Donald Trump has literally ruined thousands of farms that have suffered tremendously with the large drop in commodity prices and falling income. Trump’s reckless trade war with our allies has cost billions so far. Through it all, however, the farmers have largely stuck with him. - Daily Kos

From a political perspective, the question is, how many farmers, and other people in farm country, will consistently change their voting habits? As in, away from continued support for corrupt, idiotic right-wingers, and toward intelligent progressives who aren’t just in it for themselves?

I expressed a fond, but admittedly faintly forlorn, hope that it would happen here in the south part of MN-08, in time for the election. Which it didn’t.

Plenty of farmers, especially old ones, bless their hearts, are not going to change their politics no matter what. Part of it is just lifelong habit that is sealed tight. And part of it is…well, I’m far from the only one who can attest personally that it ain’t fun to look in the mirror and face the fact that you got suckered and used, in whatever context. People in general will engage (without realizing it) their motivated reasoning to avoid that at all costs.

It won’t take many farm country voters to flip, to start consistently flipping elections as well. But I have yet to see any serious indication that it’s happening, even in the face of the vicious, demented reality of Traitor Trump and his minions. Hopefully, before too many more years, or better yet months, it will begin.

MN lege: Senate special election Feb. 5

Tony Lourey left the SD 11 seat to be commissioner of the Department of Human Services. Special election information here.

Michelle Lee and Stu Lourey are running in the DFL primary on January 22.

The Republican candidate is MN Rep. Jason Rarick (R-Pine City). He's a bright one.

The 2017 hPVI has this district “EVEN.” And this is precisely the sort of low-turnout, midwinter contest in which the DFL has a history of struggling. So, get the word out, however, if you please.

(There is also a candidate from the Legal Marijuana Now party. Anyone voting for him instead of the DFLer will just be indulging in a self-defeating way of helping the right-winger win, and in fact potentially making legalization that much tougher, this session or in 2020. Period.)

Update: Actually, it's R+3, now.

MN lege: Empty Daudt bluster reminds you of someone

It's no longer "Speaker" Daudt, it wasn't even close in November, and he's not handling it with what you'd call gentlemanly aplomb.

The 2019 Minnesota House convened Tuesday under Democratic control for the first time in four years and it didn’t take long for lawmakers to square off in a partisan fight.

Shortly after Rep. Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, was elected the new speaker of the House, her rival for the gavel, former speaker Rep. Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, lambasted Democrats, saying they were breaking a campaign promise to be more transparent...

The procedural argument was in contrast to the cooperative tone Hortman tried to set in her remarks after winning the speaker’s gavel. - Pioneer Press

During his time as Speaker, Daudt frequently showed himself to be egocentric, selfishly stubborn, and manipulative. It's a combination of "governing" traits that I refer to colloquially as "2-year-old-in-an-adult-body." And the all-time supreme example of it is in the White House, right now.

I'm not suggesting that Daudt is anywhere near Traitor Trump's level when it comes to a truly loathsome set of character traits, combined with apparently no redeeming qualities as a human being. Hardly anyone is. But the two-year-old thing, while not limited in politics to the right wing, certainly manifests itself most massively there, by far. Hopefully voters will reject it in increasing numbers.

Educational "innovation" and "choice"

The big red flag in this first one is that the success, or lack thereof, of efforts at “innovation” is apparently mostly being measured by standardized test scores. Those of us who have studied the issue know full well that the only thing those tests really consistently, reliably measure is a kid's parents' income. But, test scores are what we have. And you wonder whether the problem with a lot of “innovations” is that they’re focused from the beginning on those same test scores, rather than on broader, better measures of ability and potential.

As part of the federal recovery effort to boost the economy after the 2008 recession, the U.S. Education Department suddenly had a big pot of money to give away to “innovations” in education. Since then, more than $1.5 billion has been spent on almost 200 ideas because Congress continued to appropriate funds even after the recession ended.  Big chunks went to building new KIPP charter schools and training thousands of new Teach for America recruits to become teachers. Other funds made it possible for lesser known programs in reading, writing, math and science instruction to reach classrooms around the country. Many of the grant projects involved technology, sometimes delivering lessons or material over the internet. One “innovation” was to help teachers select good apps for their students. Another was for a novel way to evaluate teachers.

In order to obtain the grants, recipients had to determine if their ideas were effective by tracking test scores. Results are in for the first wave of 67 programs, representing roughly $700 million of the innovation grants and it doesn’t look promising.

Only 12 of the 67 innovations, or 18 percent, were found to have any positive impact on student achievement, according to a report published earlier in 2018. Some of these positive impacts were very tiny but as long as the students who received the “innovative treatment” posted larger test score gains than a comparison group of students who were taught as usual, it counted. - Hechinger Report

Not much to wonder about on this one:

(Julie) Mead, a University of Wisconsin professor, recently co-authored with Suzanne Eckes a policy brief for the National Education Policy Center warning that redirecting public funds to charter schools and voucher programs to pay for private school tuition subsidizes discrimination with taxpayer money.

The brief points to numerous research reports and news accounts finding that private schools participating in voucher programs often deny access to students and families on the basis of religious or sexual identity, learning ability, or fluency in English. Studies also show charter schools often enroll racially and economically homogeneous student populations and tend to have fewer students with special needs.

The authors contend that expanding more charters and voucher programs increases discrimination in schools because federal laws don’t hold public, private, and charter schools to the same standards, state legislatures too often ignore discrimination in creating charter and voucher programs, and privately operated schools have a free hand to design programs to discourage—or even prevent—undesirable students from enrolling. - Jeff Bryant/AlterNet

Why doesn't Enbridge just give up on Line 3?

Because they make a great deal of money moving filthy, climate wrecking tar sands/shale oil around, that’s why. Nothing more, nothing less. Anyway, from a couple of weeks ago:

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton's administration on (Dec. 21) appealed a state regulatory panel's approval of Enbridge Energy's plan to replace its aging Line 3 oil pipeline across northern Minnesota.

The Minnesota Department of Commerce said the Public Utilities Commission got its decisions wrong because Enbridge did not introduce, and the panel did not properly evaluate, the kind of long-range oil demand forecast required by state law.

Dayton, who leaves office Jan. 7, said in a statement that he strongly supports the appeal. He said Enbridge "failed to demonstrate that Minnesota needs this pipeline to meet our future oil demand. In fact, most of the product would flow through our state to supply other states and countries." - MPR

But, as for Gov-elect Tim Walz (DFL):

Walz has said Line 3 should go forward if it can meet environmental regulations. - MinnPost 

You should click and read that article, which is mostly about who Walz might pick for an open spot on the PUC. So, we’ll see.