Speed up energy permitting

Last year the Minnesota Legislature passed a bill requiring that 100% of Minnesota’s electricity be from carbon-free sources by 2040, a very ambitious goal.  Like all tough challenges, we have our work cut out for us. Not only do we need to build solar and wind projects to generate clean energy but also transmission lines to connect that energy to the electric grid. We need to build more clean energy capacity, and we need to do it at a much quicker pace.

One area that is slowing us down is our outdated energy permitting process, much better suited for the past than the future. And the process is getting slower. The Minnesota Energy Infrastructure Permitting Act, introduced this year in the Legislature, aims to shave 9-10 months off the process. In Minnesota this can make a big difference for construction projects on tight schedules always mindful of winter.

When Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed the 2007 Next Generation Energy Act into law, he called it “a pathway to a better energy future.” He described it as a policy that “benefits the environment, rural economies, national security and consumers.” In 2024, when Democratic Gov. Tim Walz signed the 100% carbon-free bill into law, he characterized it as “an essential investment in our future that will continue to pay off for generations to come.” The  Minnesota Energy Infrastructure Permitting Act helps us get more quickly to the clean energy future we want and have been building in Minnesota.  I urge legislators from both sides of the aisle to support this bill.

Mary Haltvick, Shoreview

Let’s talk about BRT

At the behest of Ramsey County’s Policy Advisory Committee (PAC) for the Riverview Corridor, planners will now engage in a public comment period for three transit options for West Seventh Street, St. Paul:

One, a dedicated streetcar line that eliminates ALL trees, and all on-street parking with narrower sidewalks, restricted pedestrian crossings except at signalized intersections, and the like.

The second streetcar line mostly in mixed traffic only eliminates “some” on street parking.

Both of these options reduce traffic, thus customers for our local businesses through the Fort Snelling tunnel, and require a new bridge. Developers gain $800 million investment for more than $2 billion public investment, cost overruns notwithstanding. For example, the rail overpass at St. Clair is not included, nor negative impact on commercial and residential livelihoods, nor which buildings are eliminated for developers’ high-rises and parking ramps.

While the historic and cultural profile of this stretch of West Seventh is well documented as the oldest neighborhoods of the state, that is apparently not factored. Then we get to one crux of the challenge. West Seventh Street infrastructure is so bad its last rebuild in history is not even documented in Public Works — aside from street widening in the 1930s when 16 feet were taken along its entire south side, as well as all those buildings If a streetcar option is chosen, the cost is folded into federal and county budgets, about half and half.

The third PAC option is a BRT, bus rapid transit.

In this scenario with trees and on-street parking and minimal commercial and residential disruption, and quicker(!) rides, we have a budgetary advantage. Since it is a state highway, the Minnesota Department of Transportation would need to pick up the cost of the rebuild of Seventh Street. There is also the potential to connect with planned Purple and Gold bus lines for an even faster and regional ride.  Win win … And if the bridge needs to be replaced in 15 years, state and federal budgets apply, not city, not county.  More wins.

PS: I am also tired of planners presenting the streetcar options and only parenthetically mentioning a BRT. Give them equal promotional footing, please.

Jos F. Landsberger, St. Paul

Best state for kids?

In his State of the State Address Tuesday night, Gov. Walz proclaimed that Minnesota is “the best state in the country for a kid to grow up.” Based on the remainder of his speech and the choice of Owatonna’s new state-of-the-art high school as the location for his speech, Walz appears to base this assertion on how physically appealing schools are, whether or not our schools offer universal free school lunches and how much money the state Legislature is devoting to education since the Democratic-controlled Legislature boosted K-12 education spending $2.2 billion last session.

He obviously is not basing it on the plummeting standardized test scores for Minnesota learners. In 2023, 61% of statewide learners failed to meet basic standards for their grade level in science, 51% failed in reading and 54.5% failed in math, according to 2023 Assessment and Accountability Data. Furthermore, only 28% of the Minnesota students taking the ACT Test met minimum college and work readiness standards in all four areas tested: math, reading, English and science.

Despite these poor numbers on standardized tests, high school graduation rates and student grade-point averages have risen. The decline on standardized test scores started before COVID and has continued after COVID. Schools have deemphasized standardized test scores in the name of equity.

Nicholas Kristof states Sunday March 17 column that we are setting up too many of our kids for failure by leading them to believe they are fine when in fact they are falling further and further behind students from other countries. In the same column, Jill Biden is quoted as saying, ” Any nation that out-educates us will outcompete us.”

In a Friday March 22nd editorial from Bloomberg, their editorial board argues that grade inflation is setting students and their parents up for failure by letting them believe that they are fine based on their rising grades, when in reality they are lagging far beyond their peers around the world.

New, shiny schools, free lunches for all students, and $2.2 billion more for education do not insure “our kids are growing up in the best state in the country.” It means we have devoted a lot of money to education without any way of measuring our return on that investment. The 2024 Statewide Assessment and Accountability Data will tell us if this was money spent well and whether or not our children are growing up in the best state in the union. Based on how poorly our learners are scoring compared to their international counterparts, Jill Biden’s prediction is frightening, and those are the words of a former educator and Democratic political figure.

Roger Stippel, Star Prairie, Wis.
The author is a retired Minnesota teacher

The spending problem

I write to express my exasperation over Congressman Tom Emmer’s recent vote on the Omnibus Spending Bill. As a staunch conservative who has invested considerable time and effort in supporting Emmer’s campaigns in Minnesota, I find myself utterly flabbergasted by his disregard for fiscal responsibility and conservative principles.

The passage of the spending bill, which shamelessly balloons our already astronomical national debt by $260 billion (now surpassing $31 trillion), is a stark reminder of the disconnect between elected officials and their constituents. It’s mind-boggling to comprehend how such a convoluted piece of legislation could be given the green light without more thorough scrutiny.

Emmer’s decision to align himself with this fiscal irresponsibility is not only disappointing but also deeply embarrassing. To think that I once proudly supported him, only to witness him succumb to the same swamp politics he promised to oppose, is nothing short of disheartening.

But Emmer’s vote is not an isolated incident — it’s indicative of a broader pattern within the Republican Party. For too long, we’ve seen Republican politicians abandon their conservative principles in favor of political expediency and move away from Republican conservative fiscal ideology, and yet, there are those who still can’t seem to fathom President Trump’s staunch support by 75 million Americans.

President Trump’s candidacy was a direct response to the frustration felt by millions of conservatives like myself, who were tired of being sold out by our own party. He gave us a voice — a voice that demanded accountability from the very politicians we helped elect. He told us we are not deplorable simply because we don’t want to see the Democrats “fundamentally transform” this country.

As a conservative voter who values integrity and fiscal responsibility, I am tired of being let down by politicians who prioritize their own interests over those of the American people. Emmer’s vote serves as a stark reminder of why so many Americans turned to President Trump in the first place and away from the Republican establishment — a desire for real change and a rejection of the status quo.

Take heart, Minnesotans. We are represented by some genuine Republicans. Minnesota Republican Reps. Pete Stauber, Brad Finstad, and Michelle Fischbach all voted with us and against this additional government spending. All levels of government in this country, local, county, state, and federal, do not have an income problem. They have a spending problem.

Dennis M Dunnigan, White Bear Lake

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