Legalectric

Yesterday at the Fair…

There’s Alan at the booth, and note the guy in the green…

As you all know, I’ve got a lot on my plate, what with utility money-mongers trying to remake their world, and ours… and all this flap about “gay marriage” is what I regard as a political distraction from the harm the right is doing with their mutant and malignant capitalism.  But yesterday at the “Our State Fair is a Great State Fair” some people really got to me with their hateful and absurd agenda.  As Alan asked, “Why do you care about this?”  What is it that drives someone to sit at a little wooden booth in the sun all day to argue that someone who is gay should not be able to marry their partner?  I passed the “Minnesota for Marriage” booth in disgust, noting there was a video camera on a tripod at the southern end of the booth.  And Alan, fresh from a visit to the Republican building, wanted to have a chat.  He’s such a quiet and calm questioner, and is able to elicit the most amazing statement from people in any venue.  He did it again.  He went up to the booth and began to ask a woman there some questions.  The first, “Why do you care about this?”  And instead of responding, she said “Do you mind if I ask you a couple questions?” and he said, demeanor well depicted above, ‘Well, actually, I do, I asked you a question, why do you care about this?”

Note the guy in the green…

After I took this photo, I turned to catch the full booth…

… and the woman on the left told me I can’t take photos.  Excuse me?  I said I could and did!  She demanded to know who I was taking it for, and I said, “For me, Carol A. Overland, legalectric.org, you’ll find it there if you’re interested.”  She again said I couldn’t take photos, and that I have to get permission and fill out a form, it’s “down there” waving toward the other end.  She also said one of the others at the other end was an attorney… (drat, should have had a chat with THAT person, maybe it was the guy in green, though I think she may have meant the woman talking to Alan).  I told her I don’t have to sign anything… Then I ask whether their agenda includes outlawing D-I-V-O-R-C-E (!) and she gets pissed and hollers that I’m off point.  EH?  MOI?  OFF POINT?  I’m asking the question, and that’s my point.

The guy in the green comes over and gets very close into my space and in front of me and says “we’ve had about enough” and I’m just getting going, so I say, “OK, great, I’ll get your photo too” and got out the camera again, this time catching him with the camera and camera guy that was off to the left — what were they doing with that video camera:

So were they filming everyone who came up to the booth???  It was positioned to get the front of the booth… Hmmmmm… anyway, at this point I left to sit in the shade and catch up with Alan after he finished.

The punchline?  The woman he was talking to had been scripted to ask questions, and to get you to a point where you agreed that there should be some limits on who could marry, and actually told him, “You know, in Europe, people are marrying animals!”  He asked what country and what animals, and she didn’t know… uh-huh, right… so logically, we NEED this amendment in Minnesota so we won’t be marrying animals.  Alan missed his opportunity to tell her all about our wonderful German Shepherds who we so love…

Their “Minnesota for Marriage” website has no “About Us” information, not one name there, it’s an anonymous shell, “powered by ACT Right.com” where:

You choose your favorite candidates, causes, and actions, tell your friends, and get to work immediately helping the right people and organizations instantly. If you are pro-life, pro-second amendment, and pro-traditional marriage, want to support the Susan B. Anthony List, the National Organization for Marriage and the NRA, while helping a House candidate in Texas and a Senate candidate in Maine, you can do it at ActRight.com .

Minnesota for Marriage is registered as a Ballot Question group: Minnesota for Marriage

Here’s their 2010 Lobbying Report, via Minnesota Family Council fax.

595 arrested so far… There’s been a lot online about opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline for Tar Sands oil.

TAR SANDS ACTION

I’m looking at all of this and I’m wondering where the resistance was to the MinnCan pipeline, just one of our own tar sands crude oil pipeline through Minnesota.  Why is the Keystone XL pipeline project special?  Why are people waking up about tar sands pipelines?  Is it because Keystone XL is a “Presidential Permit” project at the Dept. of State?

MPIRG helped some of the landowners affected by MinnCan organize after they got very late notice they were potentially affected, but they lost bigtime, were denied intervention status by the ALJ because they were “late,” and then after it was permitted, booted out of the Appellate Court because they were not formal intervenors.  As they were in condemnation court for the pipeline, they got notice that they were targeted for CapX 2020 transmission.  At that point they became dyed-in-the-wool activists and joined with NoCapX 2020 as intervenors, in the Certificate of Need case and subsequent routing dockets for CapX transmission across Minnesota, right now in the Hampton-LaCrosse CapX 2020 routing docket .

For more info, here’s the MinnCan routing docket at PUC:

http://energyfacilities.puc.state.mn.us/Docket.html?Id=18339

Here is a link to a post with the Appellate decision:

Appellate court affirms PUC in pipeline appeal

Here are county maps, from Clearwater Co. down to the refinery in Dakota County:

http://energyfacilities.puc.state.mn.us/resource.html?Id=19000

And the Certificate of Need, go hear and search for docket “06-02” (year-docket no.)

https://www.edockets.state.mn.us/EFiling/edockets/searchDocuments.do?method=showeDocketsSearch&searchType=new

Here’re some other tar sands pipelines in Minnesota, completed:

The “Alberta Clipper” pipeline project:

http://energyfacilities.puc.state.mn.us/Docket.html?Id=19203

And another Enbridge “Southern Lights” oil pipeline project

http://energyfacilities.puc.state.mn.us/Docket.html?Id=19133

I’ve been busy, glad for the state shutdown and a pause in a couple of big cases… and then there’s the time needed to recover from huffin’ the stripper, mineral spirits, and finish.  Tearing up the upstairs rugs is what got me laryngitis from dust, mold, cat piss, and whatever — NEVER AGAIN!!!  And special thanks to Billy & Steve for the beautiful job on the floors, what a difference!  More Before and Afters as we get it done, kitchen is next.  But first, back to work, gotta pay for all this somehow!

Before – Isn’t this blue, more darker blue and purple oppressive?  The whole house was like that, serious depression issues, no doubt!  Living room is so dark green that we need lights 24/7, not a workable premise, anyway, here’s the BEFORE:

AFTER:

What’s left?  I still have to strip the ugly flat purple paint off the quarterround, finish it and nail it in, but that’s less than a day’s work, and then haul the auction-procured furniture in, and move in box after box after box after box after box of utility permit crap, good thing most of it goes in a BIG closet in the other room, and good thing I’m not hauling it all over (though I am doing major winnowing) (don’t worry, Xcel, I’m not tossing out all your smoking guns!).  Note the Summer-grrrrrrl spec’d “Black & Tan” plastic area rug, just have to toss it out the door and hose it off on the roof.

Kitchen before:

So far, it’s scraped and patched, almost ready to get rid of MORE awful blue, begging for a light yellow to perk it up, and that big area on the right, that former island cabinet is gone, replaced by two 1920’s base units, cleaned up, sanded, buffed and restored exterior and ready to paint the insides and screw together, and a nice 8 foot long butcher block counter on top, with some “Julia” pegboard and pot rack above.

Front bedroom in progress:

SURPRISE – MORE AND DIFFERENT SHADES OF BLUE!!!!  The wall in the photo on the left is now a big archway into the “nursery” (yeah, right, we sure need that!) to open it up and the oppressive dark blue is lightening up, whew, it was so awful in there.  The carpet and padding is torn out and fueling the Red Wing incinerator (AAAAAAAGH!), all the thousands of nails and staples are out, the floors are sanded and finished, the walls are now antique white, and the woodwork is in the process of being stripped, but that job will suck, not nearly as easy as in that back room.

The T. Boone Pickens wind project in Goodhue County, masquerading as a “C-BED” project now has a formal permit issued by the Public Utilities Commission.  It’s LONG, and will take some serious study:

PUC Order – AWA Goodhue Wind Project Permit

Next?  Motion for Reconsideration – probably by ALL parties!

For background on this Excelsior Energy scam known as the Mesaba Energy Project, just search on that link and here on Legalectric for Excelsior, Mesaba, gasification, boondoggle, etc.!!!!

If you search their site, what is most noticeable is the changes, lots is missing, for example, on their “About Us” page, their “Our Team” is missing a lot of people.  Here’s what it used to say:

Excelsior Energy

Print Page

Excelsior’s executive team has significant utility and power plant experience including all of the following aspects of large energy projects, planning, development, engineering, financing, permitting, construction and operation.

Executive Team
Julie Jorgensen	Co-President and CEO
Thomas Micheletti	Co-President and CEO
Thomas Osteraas	Senior Vice President and General Counsel
Dick Stone	Senior Vice President, Development and Engineering
Robert Evans	Vice President, Environmental Affairs
Kathi Micheletti	Vice President, Government Relations
William Ruzynski	Vice President, Development
Mary Day	Controller

Additional Senior Personnel

The following senior industry experts work with Excelsior Energy on a regular basis

Stephen Sherner	Sherner Power Consulting
Bruce Browers	Browers Consulting

It’s just a remnant of its former self.

Anyway,  the Duluth News Tribune articles were published:

Millions in public money spent, but Iron Range power plant still just a dream

Iron Range energy project seeks lifeline in more funding, new fuel source

… and then came some responses, first from the paper’s editors standing up against this boondoggle (finally!), and then from Julie and Tom:

Published August 23, 2011, 12:02 AM

Our view: Taxpayers have right to answers on Excelsior

What happened to our more than $40 million?

And what’s with the speculation that the dreamers of a coal-gasification plant on the Iron Range may come asking us for more cash?

Those are among questions outraged taxpayers could be asking — and ought to be asking — in the wake of a News Tribune investigation over the weekend into Excelsior Energy, which, after nearly a decade of planning, meetings and drawing from the public tap has yet to get off the ground and “has yet to move a shovelful of dirt to build its would-be 2,000-megawatt, $2.1 billion power plant,” as the newspaper’s Peter Passi reported.

Not only that, “Despite receiving virtually all of its backing from the public trough, the company’s spending records, including its officers’ paychecks, remain under wraps,” meaning a secret from all of us taxpayers footing a bill that stands at more than $40 million and counting, the News Tribune found.

“At the end of the day, this is a project that has not hired one full-time worker on the Iron Range. Only lawyers, lobbyists and professional meeting-attenders have gotten jobs,” Rep. Tom Anzelc, D-Balsam Township — and, disappointingly, the only Iron Range legislator who has ever really questioned the project — said in the two-day series.

Elected officials’ embrace of Excelsior can be understood. Seasoned, proven energy professionals brought the idea in 2001, right after LTV Steel Mining Co. closed; they promised hundreds of jobs, millions in investment dollars and a way to better use the nation’s domestic coal reserves without harming the environment.

Among the project’s problems, however has been the lack of a buyer for its power. Well-established Xcel Energy seemed a logical customer. But, like Minnesota Power, it objected to the project, warning it would drive up its customers’ rates. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission apparently agreed, refusing repeated pleas from Excelsior to compel Xcel to buy its power.

Nonetheless, elected officials and others with their fingers on the public purse strings haven’t been shy about dumping our money into it. Excelsior owes $9.5 million to the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board. It was supposed to start making loan payments 13 months ago but was given an extension to 2017. The company also received $10 million in state aid through the Minnesota Public Utility Commission’s Renewable Development Fund, despite objections from environmental groups about a plant designed to run on fossil fuel. The U.S. Department of Energy contributed another $22 million intended to cover half of the preliminary design costs, the investigation found.

And how much have Excelsior’s owners pumped into their own company? Only $60,000, according to public records. Meanwhile, their combined annual salary has risen to an estimated $600,000.

“Tracing where all Excelsior’s public money went and how it has been used is not easily accomplished, particularly after state lawmakers voted to restrict public access to Excelsior’s financial statements,” Passi reported. “Before 2008, reports the company is required to submit to the IRRRB as part of its loan agreement had been publicly available.”

Even then, what was reported often was incomplete.

And now Excelsior risks running out of steam entirely if it cannot attract additional investment from the public or private sector soon, as Monday’s story indicated.

Questions abound: Why didn’t elected leaders demand more spending scrutiny? Why has Rep. Anzelc been largely alone in waving a red flag? Why did state lawmakers vote to hide from the funds-providing public financial information? Why has there been no effort in the Legislature to provide more transparency, especially during the shutdown when every penny was being squeezed?

And, perhaps most pressing of all to taxpayers, what happened to our more than $40 million?

Here’s what Julie Jorgensen and Tom Micheletti had to say in response:

Published August 24, 2011, 12:00 AM

In response: Excelsior Energy project is an important energy option for state

By: Julie Jorgensen and Tom Micheletti, Duluth News Tribune

As co-CEOs of Excelsior Energy, we are writing to clear up inaccuracies and misconceptions about our company contained in an editorial yesterday (Our View: “Taxpayers have right to answers on Excelsior”) and in recent News Tribune articles (namely Sunday’s “Millions in public money spent, but power plant still just a dream,” and Monday’s “Project seeks lifeline in more funding, new fuel source”).

The Mesaba Energy Project, under development by Excelsior Energy, is a unique public/

private partnership selected through competitive solicitations for state and federal funding awards due to its contribution to national and state energy security and environmental goals.

We at Excelsior Energy take our obligations under our

public/private partnerships very seriously. We provide complete transparency to our funding partners as to how we use the funds provided, complying fully with the same rules, regulations and reporting requirements that apply to all other recipients. We maintain books and records that comply with both generally accepted accounting principles and the rigorous federal contracting requirements of the U.S. Department of Energy. We participate in weekly review meetings with the Department of Energy and are subject to annual external audits and periodic routine reviews and in-depth audits by the federal government.

The Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board, or IRRRB, provided a portion of the project’s funding in the form of a loan to Excelsior under express conditions that the funds be used only to reimburse documented project-development costs. These conditions were complied with by Excelsior and strictly enforced by IRRRB. The project has not received funding from IRRRB for more than four years.

The funding and support from our state and federal partners has been critical to bringing the project to a very significant stage of development. The Mesaba Project is the only available alternative to provide new coal-

fueled power to meet Minnesota’s needs. All other new coal resources are subject to a state ban, as are new nuclear resources. Recently, the project received the first site and route permit issued by the state of Minnesota in more than 30 years for such a base-load power plant.

Because of its advanced technology, the plant will all but eliminate the pollution normally associated with coal. It will do so by cleaning up the synthesis gas produced from coal prior to using it. The flexibility to use natural gas first, and switch to coal when market prices dictate, provides a hedge to protect Minnesota consumers and businesses.

The high costs and extraordinarily long timeline to permit a base-load power facility, as reported in the articles, are unfortunate realities in today’s business climate. The costs and risks of complying with myriad regulations and requirements to obtain dozens of permits from multiple state and federal agencies in order to construct a facility are a major obstacle to building even the cleanest plant using the most state-of-the-art technology.

Proposed new coal plants around the country have spent similar amounts, and in some cases double or more the amount, cited by the News Tribune before being cancelled or put in the “too hard” pile.

The regulatory logjam on clean, new facilities does nothing to enhance our environment and harms any effort to create or maintain jobs in our state and nation. It threatens our global competitiveness in the long run.

The project is nearing the end of this complex governmental-

approval process and has much to show for it. We have certainly faced many challenges, as have many other entrepreneurial companies in this continuing recession. We believe the economy will turn the corner; and when it does, the state will need clean, domestic energy supplies to power the recovery.

Meanwhile, Minnesota’s electric supply options are shrinking. The low-cost coal plants, surplus hydro and nuclear resources that have kept rates low in the past, can’t be relied on for our future. Many old coal plants currently serving Minnesota are expected to be shuttered in the next five years because they can’t meet new pollution-control requirements.

The hydroelectric power that Minnesota utilities have been planning to import from Canada may not come to fruition, as the costs and feasibility of the proposed new dams were brought under attack in a July report by the Manitoba Public Utilities Board. The cost of complying with nuclear regulations is on the rise after the nuclear crisis in Japan. Wishing that wind and conservation were enough is not a robust plan for the future.

We are proud to lead a small Minnesota business trying to put people back to work. We would like to thank all of the policymakers at the federal, state and local level who have afforded this project support through its ups and downs. We will continue to work to earn your trust and confidence. In addition, we will continue to advance the development of the Mesaba Energy Project and advocate for it as a clean, cost-effective, in-state option to meet Minnesota’s electric power needs.

Julie Jorgensen and Tom Micheletti are co-CEOs of Excelsior Energy Inc.