Legalectric

Mikey Bull’s been busy… he was promoting this last night, though earlier he’d said it would be a while before something came out in writing.  Well, wait no longer…

Here it is, warm off the press:

Cover Letter to Senate and House Energy Chairs

Preliminary Climate Change Action Plan

Here’s what jumps out at me that sucks (yes, Mikey, to critique is to live, it is my job):

Remove the barriers to and encourage development of Combined Heat and Power (CHP) projects.

Repeal the state’s moratorium on new nuclear energy facilities.

Reduce regulatory barriers by eliminating the Certificate of Need requirement for generation and transmission facilities needed to meet the renewable energy standard.

Create renewable energy “zones” and “corridors” to streamline the regulatory, environmental and siting review process for new renewable energy generation facilities and transmission lines.

Support the creation of incentives aimed at bioenergy facilities that use biomass as an energy feedstock to lower their carbon footprint.

Define wastwater sludge and byproducts as biomass and define wastewater sludge and the organic portion of solid waste and organic byproducts of each as renewable fuels.

Cap and Trade Implementation - SHOULD BE CAP AND TAX!

Advance Coal and Carbon Capture and Storage — the Midwest Regional Commitment on coal use for electricity generation is that by 2020, all new coal gasification and coal combustion plants will capture and store CO2 emissions.

And the best thing, I guess the only thing that excites me about this plan, is recycling increase, although I’d previously heard it was 75%, not 50%:

• Expand waste reduction, recycling, composting and management efforts:

• Increase further recycling and source reduction rates in Minnesota. Minnesota has reduced GHG emissions from the solid waste sector by 14% since 1990 by having the second highest recycling rates in the country and landfill gas emissions controls.

• Support increased source reduction and the interim goal of achieving a 50% statewiderecycling rate by January 2011, through efforts including:

- Recycle More Minnesota Campaign
- Office paper and junk mail reduction
- Waste reduction in the grocery sector
- Electronics recycling
- Telephone book reductions
- Increased beverage container recycling

OK, folks, comments???

That MPCA logo… looks like it’s got the whole world in its hands (things appear unbidden on my tape loop, sorry!)

MPCA is here on Legalectric today, with help from Alan Muller, because they issued a “2007-08 Solid Waste Policy: Draft for Public Comment” which is open for Comment. Yes, it’s open for Comment, but it was issued on December 21, 2007, just prior to the world shutting down for two weeks, and the Comment period is open for only three weeks.

Quick, email the MPCA’s Jim Chiles, and Commissioner Brad Moore and ask that the Comment period be extended another 30 days!

Jim Chiles: jim.chiles@state.mn.us

Commissioner Moore: brad.moore@pca.state.mn.us

Now read carefully on that home page, because this is going to be a report to the legislature — and that legislative hearing will present another opportunity to let them know what you think! Here’s “Solid Waste Policy Lite,” the presentation for “stakeholders” which of course doesn’t include you and me or those working and commenting on certain incineration issues… and just who was included? Have they held any meetings in the communities where incinerators are proposed? Has the MPCA announced this Solid Waste Policy at any of the recent meetings where Solid Waste Policy as an issue? Have “stakeholders” been spreading the word about this Solid Waste Policy? Inquiring minds want to know. They call this a “Roadmap” which harkens back to the misguided push for coal gasification by Joyce Foundation, GPISD, RE-AMP and others, and it’s clearly a way of setting policy…

Solid Waste Policy Lite

MPCA Draft Solid Waste Policy for Comment

And here’s the full MPCA Solid Waste Policy page:

MPCA’s Solid Waste Policy Page

… so here’s the MPCA, setting Solid Waste Policy as directed, not by Minnesota and federal law, but as directed by their boss, The Green-Chameleon, Tim Pawlenty:

Solid Waste Policy has been a recurring issue at the MPCA, and here we are, doing a similar policy dance that went down twenty years ago, at the time the MPCA recognized its environmental leadership role inherent in the agency’s legislative charge, and recognized the necessity of those on the front lines dealing with permitting and analysis of project proposals to weigh in:

MPCA Memo - Stand up and DO YOUR JOB!

MPCA staff critical of heavy reliance on incineration - STrib Nov 4 1988

And now, the 2007-08 Solid Waste Policy is promoting a sharp increase in incineration. The MPCA!!! Does Commissioner Moore know of and endorese this policy? Is this a reasonable position for the state agency charged with, NAMED AS, the Pollution Control Agency? Is this just a classic case, like air permitting, of inability to control it so what the hell, let’s do more, let’s waive the restrictions, up the limits so that “we’re in compliance.” Oh, great… yes, this is one green idea…

Comments anyone? There may be an extension, I’ve requested it, others probably have as well, and from Jim Chiles, who says “we plan to send out an email today on the comment-period question.” Oh, OK, and what does that mean? I’ve asked and will keep y’all posted. In the meantime, start those comments, and send by close of business on January 11, to:

* By e-mail (preferred): jim.chiles@state.mn.us
* Postal mail:

Jim Chiles
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
520 Lafayette Road N
St. Paul, MN 55155-4194

* Fax: 651-297-8676

Now get to work!

Kurt, the polar bear

There’s a movement afoot to wake up the world about the problems with the Chicago Climate Exchange.  CCX is a good idea gone bad if I’ve ever seen one, and I’ve been ranting against it for a while.  Finally some groups have come out against it, and here are their reasons:

• CCX rules have loopholes that do not warrant government support
  • Offset rules offer too many outs
• Governments should not participate inprograms developed through a closed, non-transparent process
• Participation in CCX may limit the options for participation in other programs
• States and cities can achieve their climate goals without joining CCX
• Voluntary programs are not the solution

I’d add one of my own:

• Privatization of market is improper/wrong - who pays and who benefits?

Here’s their report:

States and Cities should not join CCX

As you know, or should know, CCX, a private CO2 market developed by the Joyce Foundation.  Yes, that same Joyce Foundation that has given enviro groups such as Clean Wisconsin, RE-AMP, Great Plains Institute, Clean Air Task Force, and National Resource Defense Council bucks to support IGCC, and of course these groups and programs also support CCX, not cap and tax.  Who stands to make $$$$ from this market?  How do you stop generation of CO2 when a cap & trade scheme allows new CO2 to be generated?

Here’s the Joyce Foundation’s.. errr… Energy Foundation’s… er… the Midwest Climate Change Project 1 & 2:

Midwest Climate Change Project Part 1

Midwest Climate Change Project Part 2

And why not?  Once more with feeling — here’s why!

States and Cities should not join CCX

At long last, Neighbors Against the Burner made a presentation to the “Rock-Tenn Advisory Group.” The “Rock-Tenn Advisory Group” is District Energy’s vehicle to gain public acceptance for a garbage burner at the Rock-Tenn facility in St. Paul, by 280 and Cretin-VanDalia, and I put it in “quotes” because it’s as much an “Advisory” Committee as the NSP one put together over a decade ago to “decide where to put nuclear waste” in Goodhue County — predetermined result — but like that “Advisory” committee, it may not work out just quite like the want! They’ve been trying to stifle public input, and that’s not working…

Here’s the Neighbors’ presentation:

Health Effects of Burners - Oct 21, 2007

Get your calendars out:

Dr. Paul Connett

November 14, 2007 @ 7:00 p.m.

Davis Lecture Hall, Lower Level

Macalester in St. Paul

From the Neighbors Against the Burner site:
Internationally-acknowledged authority on the health dangers of incineration, Dr. Paul Connett, will be appearing on the Macalester College campus on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 at 7:00 pm. This NAB public meeting will be an opportunity to learn more about the hazards of building an RDF (refuse-derived-fuel) incinerator to generate energy for the Rock-Tenn paper recycling plant at Hwy. 94 & Cretin. The meeting will be held in the Davis Lecture Hall, Macalester College Campus Center, Lower Level at 1600 Grand Ave. (SW corner of Grand & Snelling Avenues, St. Paul). Bring your friends and neighbors; this will be a forum you won’t want to miss!

OH NOOOOOOOO!  In my search of the New York Times just now for articles about Xcel, I found this, an obituary for Meyer Shark, who died in May when I was out in Delaware… I had no idea.  He was one of a kind, making a second career of exposing and correcting utility abuses.  I met him when I was working for Florence Township, and we explored various means to hold Xcel, then NSP, accountable, and I was delighted to know there was someone leading the charge.  In the NRG docket, he pushed hard to make public the impact of NRG’s bankruptcy on Xcel and Minnesota ratepayers.  Now what?
To find the NRG docket:

Go to www.puc.state.mn.us

Click “eDockets” and “Search Documents”

Search for docket 02-1436

Here’s David Cay Johnston’s tribute from the New York Times:

Meyer Shark, lawyer who fought utility, is dead at 94

 By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON

Myer Shark, a Minnesota consumer lawyer whose last case sought to recover $300 million of taxes that electric customers paid a utility but that federal and state governments never received, died yesterday in a suburb of Minneapolis, days after filing the final papers in the case. He was 94.

His death was announced by a daughter, Janet Frisch. He died at a hospice in St. Louis Park, Minn.

The taxes Mr. Shark sought were embedded in the electric rates paid by customers of Xcel Energy’s Minnesota electric utility. The government did not get the money because a sister company went bankrupt, generating a huge tax refund for Xcel. Mr. Shark’s pursuit of the case inspired investigations and hearings in at least four other states.

“The law says utilities are entitled to just and reasonable returns,” Mr. Shark said three weeks ago. “When the utility pockets money that they got from ratepayers, money that was supposed to pay taxes, then they are earning unjust and unreasonable rates and I’m going to fight that as long as I’m alive.”

Ron Giteck, an assistant Minnesota attorney general, said that in the weeks before he died, Mr. Shark “filed everything that needed to be filed so the case can be decided” by the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

Last week the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission awarded Mr. Shark $20,000, the maximum allowed under state law, for his pursuit of the tax case on behalf of ratepayers. In an era when lawyer fees in a case can run into the tens of millions of dollars, Mr. Shark had asked for $160 an hour plus $437 in expenses, for a total of $30,000. Xcel opposed any payment.

Mr. Shark was born in Devils Lake, N.D., and graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1936.

In addition to his daughter Janet, of Golden Valley, Minn., he is survived by his wife of 67 years, Marjorie, of St. Louis Park, Minn.; another daughter, Miriam Shark of Baltimore; two sons, Bud, of Lyons, Colo., and Steve, of Fargo, N.D.; five grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

While he was a fierce opponent in rate cases, Mr. Shark often answered his phone whimsically, saying “you have reached your friendly Shark.”

Here’s the tax appellate case:

In the Matter of Complaint of Meyer Shark, et al., Regarding Xcel Energy’s Income Taxes

Meanwhile, a search of the Star Tribune, “all years” shows nothing…