Legalectric

The St. Lawrence Band is having a reunion. You haven’t lived until you’ve had to play saxophone while doing the foxtrot in a wool uniform in Minnesota humidity (grateful with every step that I didn’t play tuba, despite Tim McGovern’s seemingly effortless piroettes with his). I think enduring that, and selling Camp Fire candy door to door, gave me the attitude I need to do my work today! Here I am with my first saxophone (took another decade to get my Selmer VI) freezing to death before the St. Patricks Day Parade thirty-some years ago.

That’s the afore-mentioned Randy Ottoson on my immediate right with the snare drum, and none other than Kelly Doran for US Senate on my far left with the snare drum! For a long time, St. Lawrence and Sabathani were tied as the best marching bands in the state. Every summer, we spent weekends in a bus touring Minnesota, from Corn on the Curb to St. Patrick’s Day to the Aquatennial to Forest Lake. My father-in-law, Clete McGovern, ran the band when I was in it, mother-in-law Pat had been a fire baton twirler in the Aqua Follies — their family alone filled up 2-3 rows!

There’s about 500 members they’re tracking down, so if you were part of the St. Lawrence Band and haven’t heard a peep, here’s the poop. Mark your calendar:

Saturday, August 27, 2005
1:00-6:00 p.m. – and continuing…
St. Lawrence Church
1203 – 5th Street S.E.
Minneapolis, MN 55414

Here’s a map and directions.

For more information, contact:

Cookie Ostrom (507) 232-4272 tcookieb7@yahoo.com
Dave Lucking (612) 781-1159 lealip@aol.com

FYI – for those of you not checking the comments:

MIKE BULL DID DISCLOSE!

Mike’s disclosure was in his letter — it was the Northfield News that edited out his disclosure that Governor Pawlenty signs his checks as Assistant Commissioner of Commerce for Renewable Energy and Advanced Technologies from his letter last week. Hey, Northfield News — little facts like that are important!

Carol, I did disclose to the Northfield News that I’m the Assistant Commissioner of Commerce for Renewable Energy and Advanced Technologies. I don’t know why they didn’t include that with my letter, but it wasn’t for lack of disclosure.

Also, I couldn’t figure out why Mike said that the Transmission Omnibus Bill from Hell “keeps the state on track to have 20 percent of the electric energy used in the state come from renewable energy sources by 2015.” That made NO sense at all to me, and he had this to say about that:

And you’re right, this bill has nothing to do with the Renewable Energy Standard that Aaron Peterson offered on the House floor. What I was referring to in my note to the paper is that, given: 1) the current amount of renewable energy supplied to Minnesotans; 2) the amount of renewable energy Xcel is required to provide to their customers; and 3) the amount of renewable energy that Minn utilities are expected to provide to their customers under the state’s Renewable Energy Objective, we’re already on track to have 20% of our electric energy generated by renewable sources by 2015.

Welcome back from vacation, Mike!!!

My brother David’s in town, all the way from Lake Havasu, Arizona. He’s the Facilities Manager at the Islander RV Resort, the one who thinks chasing coyotes is the highest and best use for a golf cart.

Today was breakfast at Maria’s in my old neighborhood, Prestigeous East Phillips. David’s the one on the right, and Randy Ottoson on the left, friends since they were about four or five, Randy’s a nurse for Hennepin County in the Human Services and Public Health Department, and he says life is easy, family’s doing great, and he’s “got nothing to complain about,” contrary to David, he’s telling his hernia #3 story as we speak…you don’t even want to know about the sinuses… Kenya’s the new buddy in the middle!

Today I had the opportunity and good fortune to meet Julie Risser! She’s the one who wrote the Letter to the Editor in this Wednesday’s Northfield News, cut and pasted below. She’d said in her letter that she’d be here for the Carleton 2005 reunion, and so we found some time to get acquainted today (anyone who writes a letter like that, as my “little brother” would say, “Must be some friend of Carol’s!”). It turns out she and I went to the same high school, Southwest in Minneapolis, where her father was a teacher. I only went there for a semester before transferring to the Central Magnet Program, and we’re nearly a generation apart, but maybe it’s our early background similarities that lead to our similar beliefs now. It sure isn’t our present lives — she’s an Edina stay-at-home mom who used to teach Art History at Carleton, needless to say, our lives are worlds apart, which we both find amusing.

Julie got into energy issues when one of her daughters came home from school and asked about acid rain, and she naively said, “Mommy can stop acid rain.” Since then, she’s focused on coal plants, is working on energy legislative issues with the League of Women Voters, and recently went to testify about mercury in our water at a federal hearing in Chicago. Her daughters Helen and Allison are featured a Sierra Club handout on mercury called The Bush Administration Serves up Mercury to Women and Children. Here’s a version of it used in Kentucky, sans the photo of the Risser daughters!

Here’s her Northfield News Letter to the Editor:

Reader questions bill

To the editor:

As a Carleton alum planning on attending reunion weekend; as a parent who knows energy legislation is personal because it effects our economy, air quality, water quality, and even ability of our children to learn; and as a concerned citizen who traveled to Chicago to testify for preservation of the Clean Air Act, I took interest a letter printed in June 11’s paper. The writer’s position that the 2005 Omnibus Energy bill is a reflection of the governor’s “guiding energy policies of promoting reliable, low-cost energy from environmentally superior sources” left me impressed with adjective selection — but unconvinced; indeed the primary argument offered is superficial: a lot of elected officials and some special interests liked it.

I so want to believe that the Omnibus Energy bill will serve Minnesota wind farmers well. Yes, the community-based Economic Development (CBED) tariff will set a favorable higher initial price for community-owned wind projects, but there is nothing in the legislation that requires utilities to purchase this electricity. The writer contends the Omnibus Energy bill “keeps the state on track to have 20 percent of electric energy used in the state come from renewable energy sources by 2015.” Most people, especially in Northfield where wind turbines exist, probably thought this meant energy from Minnesota wind farms. Think again. There is no requirement that the renewable energy be produced here in Minnesota. There is no Renewable Energy Standard in this bill, only the 2001 optional “objective.”

This legislation also allows for “streamlining” of the transmission line approval process for energy sources that are for renewable generation, but also for generation that is not renewable. It’s a huge win for the utility companies and coal interests in the Dakotas that will use Minnesota transmission and deposit mercury in Minnesota waters. That is not a win for Minnesotans.

The writer leaves readers with the impression that Rep. Cox and Gov. Pawlenty did well by Minnesotans when they approved this legislation. If Cox and Pawlenty are serious about Minnesota’s economic and environmental sustainability, they would have supported the Renewable Energy Standard (RES). Northfielders should know that Cox voted against RES and Pawlenty did nothing to advance it. This bill should have closed the loophole allowing coal gasification plants to tap the State’s Renewable Energy Fund, $10 million that was then denied to legitimate renewable energy projects, and it should have revoked Excelsior Energy’s exemption from Certificate of Need and revoked Excelsior’s power of eminent domain. The fact that none of these things got done and because coal interests benefit from the Omnibus Energy bill indicates that legislators care more about Western mining interests and out-of-state wind interests than Minnesota wind farmers and economic development, our health, or our waters’ purity.

Julie Risser
Edina

Amazing! Sen. Steve Murphy and I agree on a few things, particularly where people were concerned about the siting process, and the reality is that the siting process is complete, state permitting for the plant is now a done deal. The major point last night is that everyone has to participate, that’s our job. Sen. Murphy emphasized that each person has an obligation to be informed, that “we can’t be spoonfeeding you the information!” I couldn’t agree more! I urged each person at the meeting to commit to participating, to keep up on what is going on in the community, to monitor and participate in the IRP process, to become familiar with legislative workings and talk to their legislators and lobby, and specifically in energy, to commit to pairing intermittent electrical generation sources such as wind and natural gas for the equivalent of baseload generation. We can’t sit back, we have to get out there and do it! Rights entail responsibilities!

Last night the Cannon Valley League of Women Voters held a forum on the Invenergy power plant planned for the northern edge of Cannon Falls. Back in 1995 (can it be that long ago??? A sure sign of getting long in the tooth!), the CVLWV recognized me as Citizen of the Year for my work on nuclear waste representing Florence Township (see town hall). It was standing room only in the new Cannon Falls Government Center.

I was invited to participate by Allene Moesler, former Executive Director (?) of Cannon River Watershed Partnership, after being told about it by Mac McCutchan, of Kenyon. Allene and Kathleen Doran-Norton, Northfield League of Women Voters, provided introductions.

What’s all the fuss about? Invenergy now has a siting permit from the EQB to build a 300+ megawatt natural gas power plant in a newly annexed industrial area on the north side of Cannon Falls. They went through the EQB siting process, which is a very public proceeding, and received a site permit in February, 2005, after the EQB issued its Findings of Fact, Conclusions and Order. The EQB Invenergy docket contains the filings, posted for the world to see. My frustration with this is that it HAS been a public process, and the Cannon Falls Beacon newspaper has been reporting it, and as the only media outlet in town, has done a good job, with 56 articles coming up in an “Invenergy” search, beginning with “Local site picked for natural gas peaking plant” on September 30, 2004, prior to submission of the application.

The big problem that I see in the process was that because the plant was to provide electricity deemed “needed” in Xcel’s Integrated Resource Plan, there was no Certificate of Need required, and the intense look at whether the plant was “needed” did not occur, need was assumed. At that point, it isn’t IF there will be a power plant, it’s just a matter of WHERE, and that is determined in the EQB siting process based on the project developer application and alternatives proposed in the process. Here’s a few important documents from the EQB Docket:

Invenergy Application – Text

Invenergy Application – Figures

Invenergy Application – Appendix

Air Quality Permit Application to MPCA

Environmental Assessment – Text

Environmental Assessment – Tables

Environmental Assessment – Figures

Environmental Assessment – Appendices

Report of the Administrative Law Judge

Site Permit

Findings of Fact, Conclusions and Order

The program last night began with presentations from a panel consisting of Joel Schrader, Invenergy; Lynne Berg, Mayor of Cannon Falls; Bruce Anderson, RENew Northfield; Bob Davis, Goodhue County; and Eric Pearson, resident of Cannon Falls. Then Sen. Steve Murphy, Rep. Jerry Dempsey, and moi were asked to give comments and then joined the group for questions.

The primary concerns expressed by citizens were air emissions, noise, and wehther this was the type of facility that should be sited in Cannon Falls, “Why Cannon Falls,” and whether, if needed, this was the best way to generate electricity.

For all intents and purposes, it’s a done deal. There is no Certificate of Need required, and the EQB site permit has been issued. What remains is the City Development Agreement and completion of negotiations of the Host Fee Agreement. The good news is that language of this plant’s personal property tax exemption in HF2228 requires a Host Fee Agreement with county, city and school district. SEN. DICK DAY AND REP. CONNIE RUTH — ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION???

142.11 Subd. 68. [ELECTRIC GENERATION FACILITY; PERSONAL
142.12 PROPERTY.] (a) Notwithstanding subdivision 9, clause (a),
142.13 attached machinery and other personal property which is part of
142.14 a simple-cycle combustion-turbine electric generation facility
142.15 that exceeds 290 megawatts of installed capacity and that meets
142.16 the requirements of this subdivision is exempt. At the time of
142.17 construction, the facility must:
142.18 (1) be designed to utilize natural gas as a primary fuel;
142.19 (2) not be owned by a public utility as defined in section
142.20 216B.02, subdivision 4;
142.21 (3) be located within 15 miles of an existing natural gas
142.22 pipeline and within five miles of an existing electrical
142.23 transmission substation;
142.24 (4) be located outside the metropolitan area as defined
142.25 under section 473.121, subdivision 2;
142.26 (5) be designed to provide peaking capacity energy and
142.27 ancillary services and have satisfied all of the requirements
142.28 under section 216B.243; and
142.29 (6) have received, by resolution, the approval from the
142.30 governing body of the county, city, and school district in which
142.31 the proposed facility is to be located for the exemption of
142.32 personal property under this subdivision.
142.33 (b) Construction of the facility must be commenced after
142.34 January 1, 2005, and before January 1, 2009. Property eligible
142.35 for this exemption does not include electric transmission lines
142.36 and interconnections or gas pipelines and interconnections
143.1 appurtenant to the property or the facility.
143.2 [EFFECTIVE DATE.] This section is effective for assessment
143.3 year 2006, taxes payable in 2007, and thereafter.

Thanks to the Cannon Falls League of Women Voters for this great event. It was the best I’ve attended in a long time, with great questions and a fact-filled open discussion. And thanks to CFLWV for helping get the word out on this power plant — I hope that everyone who attended commits to participating in civic issues going forward. Too many people sit back when issues surface, thinking “Let George do it.” Well, George’s interests and our interest, the public interest, aren’t always the same! We must do our part — it’s our jobs as humans on the planet. Let’s get to work!