I have to admit that I get impressed when a government agency can do something — anything — efficiently enough that an ordinary person would take notice of it. For instance, I marvel at just how good a job the Ventura and Pawlenty Administrations have done improving the experience of renewing car tabs; what used to be an onerous and unpleasant task is now often done with hardly a dent made into my day. Yippie!
Obviously the current batch of State Legislators are a bit more ambitious; so far this legislative session they have taken on reshaping the Earth's Climate, Energy Policy, changing the Urban landscape, getting Minnesotans out of their cars and into government-run transportation (using money taken from those using said cars), and of course are currently looking at policies to redistribute Minnesotan's incomes so that the economic landscape more precisely reflects the desires of the Limousine Liberals from Minneapolis.
That's quite an agenda!
I won't belabor the obvious: The tax increases required to accomplish all this will be remarkable in scope.
Rather, I would like to focus on a related question: From where did these otherwise sane people ever get the idea that any human institution, no less government, can or does have the kind of power and wisdom to accomplish all these fine tasks without there being enormous and generally negative unintended consequences?
Let's take just one — just one out of all these many tweaks that these Masters of the Universe have made to the natural state of things — and see what consequences they have wrought.
Consider doubling the mandated amount of Ethanol in our gasoline from 10% to 20%, as happened recently here in Minnesota. A number of new Ethanol production plants have sprung up. These, in turn, have been buying corn at a tremendous rate, popping up the price of corn. The price of corn shooting up means that animal feed products have shot up in price, as well as other corn-based products. The price of tortillas in Mexico, for instance, has about tripled. Tortillas are a primary source of protein for most Mexicans, and are becoming unaffordable to many (who will now consider emigrating North, of course). Further, high corn prices stimulate farmers to shift production of soy and other products to corn. Oh, but wait, all those ethanol plants are starting to suck up much of the water in the water table, making the lives of the farmers and ranchers much more difficult....
All this, and for what exactly? Little more than to pretend to do something, as Ethanol itself is a rather poor fuel and is not economically competitive with oil without subsidies and trade barriers.
In the long run our Ethanol policy will result in income transfers from poor Mexicans to wealthy Americans, excessive harm to our farmland as we encourage farmers to plant more corn than is healthy or necessary for the market, we will drive up the cost of natural gas (which is one of the main inputs in Ethanol production) that Minnesotans use to cook and heat their homes, and do real damage to our watersheds.
Liberals never seem to learn the lesson that the world is not so easily shaped to our desires. The unintended consequences of our actions can far outweigh the intended consequences.
AS bad an idea as that one rather modest tweak to our energy policy was, now multiply the possible consequences of some of the other proposed changes the liberals are pushing. Climate change policies. Renewable energy on a grand scale. Reshaping the urban landscape. Increasing transit ridership. Redistributing income.
Think there might be an unintended consequence or two?
Well, if Larry Pogemiller and the Masters of the Universe over in St. Paul get their way, we may have the opportunity to find out. Unfortunately, it may be that a good number of our entrepreneurs will be watching the carnage from a comfortable vantage point in another state.
Mary's Page
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11/20/09/4:49 pm Franken's Cooking & Healthcare
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11/18/09/5:48 pm Health Care Concerns
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11/16/09/4:47 pm Unallot Lawsuit
Energy
Larry Pogemiller and the Masters of the Universe
Thursday, March 29, 2007 - 8:47 am
I have to admit that I get impressed when a government agency can do something — anything — efficiently enough that an ordinary person would take notice of it. For instance, I marvel at just how good a job the Ventura and Pawlenty Administrations have done improving the experience of renewing car tabs; what used to be an onerous and unpleasant task is now often done with hardly a dent made into my day.
( categories: Energy | Environment | Taxes | 03/2007 | David Strom | Larry Pogemiller | Brain Trust )
Keep Your Eye on the Ball - Part II
Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - 7:48 am
The House minority leader recently posted about prospects for the 2008 House elections. From where I stand, I count over 50 more days until the constitutional adjournment date for the 2007 legislative session.
The House is focused on the priorities Minnesotans say need the most attention: a great education for kids, affordable heath care and property tax reductions. To date, under the leadership of the DFL, the House has:
The House is focused on the priorities Minnesotans say need the most attention: a great education for kids, affordable heath care and property tax reductions. To date, under the leadership of the DFL, the House has:
- Passed tax relief for teachers, parents and veterans on a bipartisan vote of 132-0
- Passed a nation-leading renewable energy standard on a bipartisan vote of 123-10
- Passed funding for the environment and conservation on a bipartisan vote 121-6
- Passed a historic transportation bill that will invest in new roads and transit, which will improve safety and reduce congestion on a bipartisan vote
- Announced a budget plan that would invest in All-Day Every-Day Kindergarten, comprehensive health care starting with our kids, and permanently reduce property taxes for every Minnesotan.
While I look forward to his one-liners each day, lately I'm never quite sure which direction the minority leader is headed. One day he says we're not working hard enough, the next day he doesn't want to work at all. Now he's trying to handicap the field for the 2008 election?
Minnesota just finished the 2006 campaign season. Now, it's the season to work on what the voters elected us to do. We need to focus on the real work, not the partisan rhetoric.
I think the best way stop these wild swings back and forth for control of the Minnesota House is just focus on the work we have before us. After all, that is what we all have in common.
The House minority leader recently posted about prospects for the 2008 House elections. From where I stand, I count over 50 more days until the constitutional adjournment date for the 2007 legislative session.
( categories: Energy | Environment | Health Care | PreK-12 Education | Taxes | 03/2007 | Marty Seifert | Tony Sertich | Brain Trust )
A Mighty Wind
Monday, March 5, 2007 - 9:22 am
There are many leadership models, but the one I like best can be defined this way: Create a vision of the future to which other people want to subscribe, then help clear away the barriers to achieving that vision.
A couple of weeks ago, Minnesota provided the world with a prime example of this kind of leadership when, after years and years of discussion and political struggle, the Legislature adopted — and Governor Pawlenty signed into law — the country's most ambitious renewable energy law, mandating that by 2025, at least 25 percent of electricity used in the state be generated by new sources of renewable energy.
While it's true that success has many parents, and the renewable energy bill owes its success to many in the Legislature and elsewhere, it would be hard to overstate the leadership and determination Sen. Ellen Anderson has shown on this issue. Without her, it's hard to imagine Minnesota would have come so far, so fast on green energy.
Anderson, who's been in the Senate for 15 years, got her first chops on renewable energy in 1994 when, as a junior legislator, she was involved in crafting the bill that resolved the controversy over Xcel's plan to increase its storage of nuclear waste at its Prairie Island plant. In exchange for granting that concession, the Legislature required that by the end of the 1990's, the utility company would have to either purchase or generate 825 Megawatts of wind energy per year. "That bill kick-started Minnesota's wind energy industry," Anderson recalls. "In a few short years, it went from infancy to maturity."
This year's renewable energy bill was co-sponsored by Anderson in the Senate and Rep. Aaron Peterson (DFL-Appleton) in the House. While hydropower can be among the new sources of green energy, without question the primary source will be wind power. That, in turn, represents a triple-benefit for the state. Not only will we get to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce our dependence on fossil fuel — much of it imported from outside the United States — but because the law requires compliance, it guarantees the kind of returns that will bring investors and manufacturers flocking to Minnesota. "To me, it was critical that the goal be a requirement. Only that will bring investments and producers to the state," Anderson says.
In one form or another, Anderson has been pushing for this mandate for the past six years — or almost half her time in office — beginning with a bill she introduced in 2001 that would have required that 10 percent of the state's electrical use come from new sources of renewable energy by 2010. Passed by the Senate, her bill had to be watered down, making the goals voluntary rather than obligatory, in order to pass the Republican-controlled House.
Last fall's DFL takeover of the House set the stage for the new mandatory requirements, though other factors helped finally line up the stars for passage, namely, the growing scientific consensus on Global Warming and the release of the Commerce Department's Wind Integration Study that verified that Minnesota could integrate a 25 percent share of wind-generated electrical power with minimal difficulty. But Anderson's persistence and political courage were also key.
"Last session, the Governor tried to gut the bill by saying we should include hydropower from Canada in that 25 percent requirement, but we said 'No,'" Anderson says. "If you count sources that already exist, you don't end up having the kind of impact we wanted in terms of stimulating new industry in Minnesota. It was critical for us to insist that this be new sources of renewable energy." In the battle over whether to include existing hydro sources, Anderson concedes, "We won about 90 percent of that battle this year, allowing only a few things already in place to be counted under the law." But 90 percent is still enough to make Minnesota's requirements the toughest in the country.
It is extremely difficult for a politician to make the move from a district legislative seat to statewide office, at least without the backing of a national political fundraising machine. But given her leadership on the renewable issue it doesn't seem farfetched to suggest that Anderson could soon emerge as a formidable statewide candidate, should she so choose. Though she represents the Como Lake district in St. Paul, her advocacy of wind and ethanol have gained her support in southern and western Minnesota — normally Republican strongholds — and if the investments and manufacturing jobs she envisions materialize, she will also have a strong base of support in organized labor and on The Range. Meanwhile, whether you're a leftie worried about Polar bears or a conservative preoccupied by terrorism, you have to love renewable energy as an answer to both greenhouse gas and our dependence on overseas sources of fossil fuels.
So, who knows? With her record of visionary leadership — and the wind at her back — Anderson could maybe sail all the way to the Governor's office in 2010.
A couple of weeks ago, Minnesota provided the world with a prime example of this kind of leadership when, after years and years of discussion and political struggle, the Legislature adopted — and Governor Pawlenty signed into law — the country's most ambitious renewable energy law, mandating that by 2025, at least 25 percent of electricity used in the state be generated by new sources of renewable energy.
While it's true that success has many parents, and the renewable energy bill owes its success to many in the Legislature and elsewhere, it would be hard to overstate the leadership and determination Sen. Ellen Anderson has shown on this issue. Without her, it's hard to imagine Minnesota would have come so far, so fast on green energy.
Anderson, who's been in the Senate for 15 years, got her first chops on renewable energy in 1994 when, as a junior legislator, she was involved in crafting the bill that resolved the controversy over Xcel's plan to increase its storage of nuclear waste at its Prairie Island plant. In exchange for granting that concession, the Legislature required that by the end of the 1990's, the utility company would have to either purchase or generate 825 Megawatts of wind energy per year. "That bill kick-started Minnesota's wind energy industry," Anderson recalls. "In a few short years, it went from infancy to maturity."
This year's renewable energy bill was co-sponsored by Anderson in the Senate and Rep. Aaron Peterson (DFL-Appleton) in the House. While hydropower can be among the new sources of green energy, without question the primary source will be wind power. That, in turn, represents a triple-benefit for the state. Not only will we get to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce our dependence on fossil fuel — much of it imported from outside the United States — but because the law requires compliance, it guarantees the kind of returns that will bring investors and manufacturers flocking to Minnesota. "To me, it was critical that the goal be a requirement. Only that will bring investments and producers to the state," Anderson says.
In one form or another, Anderson has been pushing for this mandate for the past six years — or almost half her time in office — beginning with a bill she introduced in 2001 that would have required that 10 percent of the state's electrical use come from new sources of renewable energy by 2010. Passed by the Senate, her bill had to be watered down, making the goals voluntary rather than obligatory, in order to pass the Republican-controlled House.
Last fall's DFL takeover of the House set the stage for the new mandatory requirements, though other factors helped finally line up the stars for passage, namely, the growing scientific consensus on Global Warming and the release of the Commerce Department's Wind Integration Study that verified that Minnesota could integrate a 25 percent share of wind-generated electrical power with minimal difficulty. But Anderson's persistence and political courage were also key.
"Last session, the Governor tried to gut the bill by saying we should include hydropower from Canada in that 25 percent requirement, but we said 'No,'" Anderson says. "If you count sources that already exist, you don't end up having the kind of impact we wanted in terms of stimulating new industry in Minnesota. It was critical for us to insist that this be new sources of renewable energy." In the battle over whether to include existing hydro sources, Anderson concedes, "We won about 90 percent of that battle this year, allowing only a few things already in place to be counted under the law." But 90 percent is still enough to make Minnesota's requirements the toughest in the country.
It is extremely difficult for a politician to make the move from a district legislative seat to statewide office, at least without the backing of a national political fundraising machine. But given her leadership on the renewable issue it doesn't seem farfetched to suggest that Anderson could soon emerge as a formidable statewide candidate, should she so choose. Though she represents the Como Lake district in St. Paul, her advocacy of wind and ethanol have gained her support in southern and western Minnesota — normally Republican strongholds — and if the investments and manufacturing jobs she envisions materialize, she will also have a strong base of support in organized labor and on The Range. Meanwhile, whether you're a leftie worried about Polar bears or a conservative preoccupied by terrorism, you have to love renewable energy as an answer to both greenhouse gas and our dependence on overseas sources of fossil fuels.
So, who knows? With her record of visionary leadership — and the wind at her back — Anderson could maybe sail all the way to the Governor's office in 2010.
There are many leadership models, but the one I like best can be defined this way: Create a vision of the future to which other people want to subscribe, then help clear away the barriers to achieving that vision.
( categories: Economy | Energy | Environment | 03/2007 | Aaron Peterson | Ellen Anderson | Rich Broderick | Brain Trust )
The Return of the First-Termers (02/23/07)
Our group of first-time lawmakers make their second Almanac appearance. Republicans Bill Ingebrigtsen and John Berns sit down on the couch with DFLers Patricia Torres Ray and Kathy Brynaert.
The Legislative Week that Was (02/23/07)
Mary Lahammer touches base on what happened this week under the dome in St. Paul. By the way, we're talking about the white dome ... not the green one!
Landmark Alternative Energy Bill (02/23/07)
Minnesota passed into law this week the nation's most aggressive alternative energy bill. We bring together a group of stakeholders.
Capitol Update - February 22, 2007 (02/22/07)
Capitol Update - February 20, 2007 (02/20/07)
Capitol Update - February 19, 2007 (02/19/07)
Capitol Update - February 12, 2007 (02/12/07)
