Legalectric

Here’s the bill everyone’s talking about:

Comments? It’s important to let them know what you think. Here’s the contact info for the Senate Energy Committee (LINKED HERE).

In last week’s Rochester Post Bulletin, about the Senate Energy and Utilities Finance and Policy Committee meeting in Rochester:

Senators take heat on waste-burning energy

• John Molseed jmolseed@postbulletin.com
• Jan 15, 2020

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

Great solar day today in Red Wing. It takes a while for the sun to get up over the bluff, through the trees, around the water tower, but when it gets going, WOW! YES!!! It’ll be into the trees and the golf course side of the bluff soon, but hey, let’s make electricity while the sun shines!

Love it when this happens! Solar working even in this location. Sun will drop behind the bluff soon and behind Mary’s trees, but it still works. In summer, even late spring and early fall, it will be amazing! Well worth it!

Is this cool or what?!?!?!

We can’t figure out what those big short spikes are, toaster was only used once. Furnace blower is the flat spikes every 20-30 minutes or so. What is it???

Later in the day, the sun came out, although this time of year, we’re below the bluff so it’s not direct:

That little spike mid-day was my little space heater here in the office, which I turned on for a minute or two to see what it looked like. I don’t know what that later spike was. And now the sun is way below the bluff, headed down. This looks pretty good considering that this is not an ideal location for solar.