Legalectric

UPDATE! House Trial Brief and tRump Answer.

Read the House brief, even just flip through the pages, to get a sense of the specifics, and there are specifics here, citations, evidence, etc., it’s intense and thorough.

Then read the tRump team Answer:

Not a single citation to law or evidence in the record. But statements like this:

Senator Ron Johnson reported that, when he asked the President whether there was any connection between security assistance and investigations, the President responded: “No way. I would never do that.”

And just before that, the famous lines:

“I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo.”

That “Answer” wouldn’t get a passing grade in Jr. High Civics, much less any law school.

Last night, Sen. Osmek held a Senate Energy Committee meeting in Rochester. It was standing room only, at least 100 showed up (I had 100 flyers, and had 4 left and I know I missed a few).

Here’s the bill DRAFT, SC5558-6:

Here’s the powerpoint explaining the bill:

Who all showed up and testified? All a bunch of paid suits, with just three exceptions, pushed to the very end. Check the list of lobbyists here:

Alan Muller got on the list to testify, he’ll be writing to the Committee soon:

And here’s my comment sent to the committee:

Where were Senators Dibble and Marty? I must confess, I was so disgusted by Sen. Marty’s handling of the e21 debacle back in 2015 that I’ve not been back to the Senate Energy Committee since then (Marty tried to introduce Xcel’s e21 bill, and tried to shut down testimony opposing that bill…
(report from that meeting) though the room was packed with those who had rolled over supporting it, only three of us there opposed it, myself, Alan Muller, and Office of Attorney General’s RUD James Canneday. Sen. Marty pulled the bill as he “introduced” it and then substituted an e21 light and wouldn’t allow testimony on anything else! Well, we did what we could, and it wasn’t until the very end in conference committee or just before that he put the awful Xcel-desired language back in. SF 1735 – SHAME on each Senator who voted for it). Back into the fray, I guess!

My take is that Sen. Senjem, or the Republican caucus, or ???, are concerned about Sen. Senjem’s seat, why else would they put Mikey Bull up there beside him, emitting puffery about the bill? Seems there’s just one other Senate hearing scheduled, info below.

Next up, next week, Mound, Minnesota, in Sen. Ozmek’s district:

Wednesday, January 22, 2020, 4:00 PM

Mound Westonka High School’s Performing Arts Center

905 Sunnyfield Road East

Minnetrista, MN 55364

Now, Mikey, about “carbon capture and storage,” good grief. Did you learn nothing from all those years of Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project? Here’s why it’s good the Mesaba Project was not built!

Pipedreams of Green and Clean

Once again, tRump is on the wrong side of the Constitution in his continued attempts to limit refugees, immigrants, Muslims, from entering the U.S. LEGALLY! Today, the Maryland federal district court said NO, YOU CAN”T DO THAT!

Love it when this happens. But to have to keep going to court, over and over and over and over and over and over… at what point can these unconstitutional Executive Orders be ground to a halt?

Minnesota Senator Osmek is convening a Senate Energy Committee meeting in Rochester this evening to discuss a DRAFT bill SC5558-6:

6 p.m. on January 15, 2020

Rochester Community and Technical College

Heintz Center Commons

1926 College View Rd E

Rochester, MN 55904

Here’s the letter I just fired off to Committee members:

Be there or be square!

Just in, Commerce-EERA responses to Association of Freeborn County Landowners’ 11/25/2019 Data Practices Act Request:

This was the one we sent trying to get information on a Pre-Construction meeting that we’d not heard anything about, and damned if the meeting didn’t start about half an hour after we sent this request!!! Here’s the response to that 11/25/2019 request:

Some highlights:

Yes, there is that statement again of that “quick, delete those emails” Commerce policy, stated above: “As your request was received on November 25, 2019, unless I have saved an email, emails that I could provide you with would be from August 27, 2019 to November 25, 2019. ” And six times in that missive, “EERA must reiterate that email correspondence prior to August 27, 2019 had been automatically deleted by the Agency’s email system.” Yeah, we get it…

OK, fine, we send Data Practices Act Request every 90 days… we can do that.

And when we request notice of Pre-Construction meetings, after all, after all, we’re a party, have been for years now, yet from PUC’s Kaluzniak’s email about our April 23, 2019 Data Practices Request there’s an inference drawn about AFCL attendance at meetings…

And EERA says about notice to meetings:

FYI – Here’s Xcel’s Summary of the 11/25/2019 Pre-Construction meeting that no one told us about, filed December 6, 2019:

That same day, just before that Xcel filing and almost 2 weeks after getting confirmation of our 11-25-2019 Data Practices Request from the Data gurus at both PUC and Commerce, this arrives from Rich Davis… can you spell “oppositional” anyone?

Yeah, it’s just more of the “Davis Shuffle.” Save, document, wait… we’re already sitting at the Court of Appeals, and we’re waiting for PUC to address our EAW Petition. Just keep it up…

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION ANYONE?

Minn. Stat. 216E.08

Subd. 2. Other public participation.The commission shall adopt broad spectrum citizen participation​as a principal of operation. The form of public participation shall not be limited to public hearings and​advisory task forces and shall be consistent with the commission’s rules and guidelines as provided for in​section 216E.16.