Energy

With St. Paul–based Xcel Energy on pace to disconnect power to some 70,000 Coloradans this year for nonpayment, energy activists there are openly questioning why ratepayers should pick up the tab for lavish executive board-member dinners, hotel and spa retreats and luxury box tickets to professional sports games. But those who want the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to establish a firm policy cracking down on such excesses likely won’t get their wish anytime soon, according to a commission spokesman.

The push is on to dilute the climate change bills moving through Congress, and it’s not coming only from conservatives. Mother Jones’ Kate Sheppard reports today that 14 Senate Democrats — including Minnesota’s Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar — are urging their leadership to amend the proposal to grant more free polluting permits to the [...]

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?