Legalectric

Just the facts, ma’am…

This is a chart showing the unemployment rate from 1948 to 2012, marked every six years.  You can find the numbers for yourself at the Bureau of Labor Statistics Data page, plug in whatever years you want, and there it is:

Bureau of Labor Statistics Data

Take a look at trends.   This is not rocket science…

I’ve been seeing so much, opinions expressed by people who should know better, a handful or more I hear from regularly (maybe not so much anymore!), making statements so far in contradiction to easily discoverable facts, it’s so disturbing, and this mantra of “say it enough and it becomes true” is driving me nuts…

I went on a little Labor Day rant earlier:

Labor Day… Yes, it’s true, my great-grandfather on my mother’s side was a union organizer and buddy of Debs; my father often told us of being a kid hanging at the outskirts of the teamster strike and shootings in his Mpls. neighborhood by Hiawatha-Lake, guns going off and running to safety. Here it is Labor Day, and we should be expressing gratitude for 8 hour days, overtime pay, weekends, minimum wage, elimination of much child labor… and taking a day off! I’m seeing the rants of people clueless of those who gave so much and fought so hard for things today’s workers take for granted, so much so that they’ll roll over and give it up, act against their interests… and then when they’re hit with economic reality, to vilify unions (Wisconsin is just across the Mississippi from here) and blame the current unemployment rates and economic disaster on Obama? Even my life-long Republican father sitting in diapers at the nursing home had the sense to give Bush the finger every time his mug appeared. Repeating the propaganda over and over does not make it true, though it does a lot to keep me outraged and fighting! Dog grant me the serenity…

And let’s be clear — I have a personal and professional disgust about Obama’s support of coal gasification a la Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project, and his fast-tracking SEVEN transmission projects, including “my” Susquehanna-Roseland and CapX? 2020 Hampton-Rochester-LaCrosse (What does Obama’s Xmsn push mean?), and then there’s fracking… I spend hours writing the White House (rattling the cage enough to get a call from Lauren Azar!), the campaign, and pieces here, and you all know about that disgust in detail, but the alternative?  Romney is so repulsive, repugnant that I have no words, and I am going to have to hold my nose, and vote for Obama the corporate toady.  But more than that, if there’s any chance Romney could get in, it’s time to act and do what I can to keep that from happening.  It’s time.  I now feel I have to kick into gear and do more, the prospect of Romney getting elected is more than I can bear, and it’s a lot more than Seamus:

It’s a lot more than giving my Social Security to Wall Street, or Romney and Ryan’s desire to eliminate Medicare (though having health care in a few years is something I am so looking forward too).   This is a “Drill, Baby, Drill” guy, a proponent of nuclear power, his Energy Plan is embarassing, that he put something like that out in public, OH MY DOG, and yet, people aren’t rolling on the floor laughing?  WAKE UP!  Read the stupid thing:

Romney’s Energy Plan – much ado about nothing

How is it that someone this monumentally stupid, look up vacuous and there he is, he and his handlers, how can he be deemed Presidential material?  Did you see his facial expressions during his big speech last week?  OH MY DOG!  Scary… utterly phony.

And they’re calling this election close.  How is it that people I know and respect and care about can have their heads SO implanted?  In large part, I think we’re seeing the result of our “educational” system, zero critical thinking abilities…  So it’s time to do more than hitting reply and send the Obama team scathing emails about their horrible policy positions (don’t worry, I’ll be doing that too).  But its time ramp up the challenge to the falsehoods that are being tossed about, over and over, in an effort to make it true. I just can’t stomach it anymore.  I’ve seen one too many “Obama is responsible for this mess” rants.  I’ve had enough.

Again, Dog grant me the serenity… and this situation, yes, we do indeed have a situation, this is something that raises the obligation humans have to change the things we can.  Onward!

Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project, the coal gasification plant that will not die, is returning to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission on August 14, 2012.

Notice – August 14, 2012 PUC Meeting

At that time, they’ll address whether the original project’s permits apply to this project, and whether this one, under Minn. Stat. 216B. 1694, requires additional environmental review:

**6.     E6472/GS-06-668 Excelsior Energy, Inc.
In the Matter of the Joint LEPGP Site Permit, HVTL Route Permit and Pipeline (Partial
Exemption) Route Permit Application for the Mesaba Energy Project in Itasca County.
Should the Commission find, pursuant to Minnesota Statutes 216B. 1694 subdivision 3, that the
site and route permits issued on March 12, 2010 for the Mesaba Energy Project are deemed valid
for a natural gas fired plant located at the same site and that no additional environmental review
is required under applicable state rules?

This docket has been one of the longest strangest trips ever, a coal gasification plant that wasn’t needed yet fed by state and federal money, using CO2 capture and storage that does not, can not, and will not exist.  Here’s some history:

Health Benefits of Coal (ya gotta read this one, HILARIOUS!)

Mesaba – Extend the Hearing! (the hearing was a farce)

And why are we here on the 14th?  The PUC granted a Site Permit to the project f/k/a Mesaba Project, the coal gasification plant:

ALJ Recommendation – Mesaba Site Permit

PUC Order and Site Permit – March 2010

Then it starts getting complicated, Excelsior sends PUC letter saying it wants confirmation that the permits issued for the Mesaba Project coal gasification plant are valid for a natural gas plant, and that it would require no further environmental review:

Excelsior Energy Request – May 31, 2012

Notice of Comment Period

Comment – mncoalgasplant.com

Commerce CommentsSierra Club Comment

And then Excelsior chimes again disclosing not much of anything about their “plan” for this gas plant:

Excelsior’s Response to Commerce IRs June 26, 2012

And then the Comment period is extended and we get another bite:

MCGP Reply Comment

And now we’re off to the races…

In the Duluth News Tribune:

Feds say no more money for Iron Range Excelsior Power Plant

Somebody kill this thing!!!  It just won’t die…

So here we go again — check out our exhibits:

Comment – mncoalgasplant.com

So what were we commenting on this time?  Excelsior Energy says it wants to build a gas plant, and use all the permits and perks it got as a “coal gasification” project.  Over my dead polar bear!

Initial Excelsior Request – May 31, 2012

Commerce Comments

Excelsior’s Response to Commerce IRs June 26, 2012

Can’t we just shut the door on this, lock it tight, and GO HOME?

Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project has raised its ugly head again.  There were rumors for a long time that Micheletti wanted to change it to a natural gas plant.  Then they went to the legislature and got the “incentives” for their boondoggle “clean coal” plant, the “innovative technology” that doesn’t work…  they went to the MPCA and their air permit was AGAIN rejected as incomplete, and now they’ve gone to the PUC, requesting confirmation that the permits they have are valid.  Oh, PUH-LEEZE!

Here we go again…

mncoalgasplant.com will be filing comments, no doubt about it!

Would the PUC doesn’t transfer projects like this without amending the permit application, without verification of what indeed it is they want to do?  If you take the original ALJ Decision, the Permit Order and the Permit itself, redact everything related to coal gasification, what’s left?  Not much!  We need to know what they’re planning (if anything, this remains the vaporware project from hell).

This is the letter filed by Excelsior Energy — I don’t recall having received it, but will dig through the piles here, they DO have my correct address (though I note that they sent to Excelsior’s Evans, Greenman and Harrington at their OLD address!):

Excelsior Energy Request – May 31, 2012

Here is the PUC’s Notice of Comment Period, first round due June 29, 2012:

Notice of Comment Period

And what’s most disturbing is the legislative change in 2011, supported, DEMANDED, by Gov. Dayton:

Subd. 3. Staging and permitting.

(a) A natural gas-fired plant that is located on one site designated as an innovative energy project site under subdivision 1, clause (3), is accorded the regulatory incentives granted to an innovative energy project under subdivision 2, clauses (1) to (3), and may exercise the authorities therein.

(b) Following issuance of a final state or federal environmental impact statement for an innovative energy project that was a subject of contested case proceedings before an administrative law judge:

(1) site and route permits and water appropriation approvals for an innovative energy project must also be deemed valid for a plant meeting the requirements of paragraph (a) and shall remain valid until the earlier of (i) four years from the date the final required state or federal preconstruction permit is issued or (ii) June 30, 2019; and

(2) no air, water, or other permit issued by a state agency that is necessary for constructing an innovative energy project may be the subject of contested case hearings, notwithstanding Minnesota Rules, parts 7000.1750 to 7000.2200.

Here’s the link to the full Minn. Stat. 216B.1694.

Thanks to a little birdie for this!

Check out page 4.  So is that Wisconsin’s Russell Feingold?  Naaaaaaah, must be his alter ego…

Black & Veatch – 2012 Strategic Directions in the U.S. Electric Utility Industry

Keep in mind that this is a utility survey, so it is not a report on reality, it is a report on perceptions of the “captains of industry,” not the “captives of industry!”  Here’s what they’re concerned about (click to enlarge):

And an interesting one — I cannot comprehend how, in 2012, anyone involved in things electric would think that coal gasification would ever be viable (click to enlarge):

And my favorite — LOAD GROWTH (click to enlarge):