Energy

The House last Friday provided a generous lifeline to the wildly popular clunkers program — which grants drivers up to $4,500 to scrap their gas guzzlers for more fuel efficient vehicles — and the Senate is poised to pass that bill Thursday. But there’s a glitch. The proposal steals its funding from a Department of Energy program encouraging the development of renewable energy technologies.

First, U.S. Sen. Al Franken wouldn’t stand to meet billionaire T. Boone Pickens. Then he got into it with the latter-day domestic-energy guru — “a lively conversation” were Franken spokeswoman Jess McIntosh’s words — over Pickens having paid for “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” ads against Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 presidential campaign. Unseemly [...]

Minnesota’s congressional delegation spent a lot of time discussing health care this week, but there were other issues to deal with. Railroads, grasslands, student loans and peace in the Middle East all garnered attention from Minnesota’s members of Congress.

Despite a metro-area city backing out of the project, representatives for the proposed Big Stone II power facility say they remain optimistic about the plant’s future, while opponents are still saying that it means dirty power for the Dakotas and Minnesota.

Healthcare reform and the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor dominated headlines this week, but many of Minnesota’s congressional representatives have been busy working on a slew of issues from food-borne illness andhydrocephalus to highway funding and aid to Liberia.

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann says “people need to melt the phone lines” of their representatives in Washington, D.C. over the next two weeks to stop legislation on health care and energy. If the bills pass, Bachmann predicts a dire future. “We’ve seen the end of this movie,” she warned Thursday on WCCO-AM (audio).

This week Minnesota’s members of Congress went back to work after the July 4 break, except for Sen. Al Franken who was showing up — finally — for the first time. Rep. Keith Ellison put forward a credit reform bill, Rep. Betty McCollum announced her plan to expand the Peace Corps, and Republicans criticized the Democrats’ energy and stimulus policies. Here’s how the week shook down…

WASHINGTON — As Senate lawmakers launch new efforts to curb the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, some key members have joined local transportation officials and environmentalists to ask a seemingly relevant question: Where’s the commitment to public transit?

Proponents in the U.S. House of Representatives needed every Democratic vote they could get Friday evening – and even a few from Republicans — to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) by a vote of 219–212 to cheers on the House floor. Eight Republicans backed the climate-change energy bill, with 44 Democrats voting against. Minnesota’s House [...]

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is due back at work today following a mysterious several-day absence. For Minnesotans whose memories extend to the 1970s, news of an AWOL governor evokes the early days of Gov. Rudy Perpich’s first term in office — days Perpich spent out of the office, whereabouts (then) unknown.