Minnesota Congressman Collin Peterson, a “Blue Dog” Democrat, joined Republicans in a failed attempt to overturn a law that will require more energy efficient light bulbs starting next year.
Before going off to the Council on Foreign Relations to give a speech on foreign policy, former Minnesota governor and 2012 GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty appeared on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning. Asked about his stance on cap and trade, he acknowledged that he had changed his mind. He added, “I denounced it for a variety of reasons, one of which is the science is bad and it’s in great dispute,” repeating once more that there is a “scientific dispute” about the issue of climate change.
Most highway construction and maintenance today gets paid for at the pump, in the form of gas and diesel taxes, both state and federal. So how will electric cars pay their share? For now, they are driving for free, save for license and registration fees. And that’s something that advocates of mileage-based user fees believe they can use to their benefit as they push for a restructuring of highway financing.
Much of the attention on corn-based ethanol has focused on the role that this supposedly renewable fuel is playing in driving up global food prices. Now environmental groups and some conservative politicians are pointing out another problem — corn-based ethanol consumes the bulk of federal funding on renewable energy and the big oil companies that blend the ethanol into gasoline are collecting subsidies to the tune of about $6 billion a year.
Minnesota Reps. Keith Ellison and Betty McCollum are among 34 Democrats expressing concern over an expansion to the Keystone pipeline, a 1,700-mile pipeline that’d carry some 700,000 barrels of oil extracted from Canadian tar sands from Alberta to Texas each day. In a letter to Environmental Protection Agency head Lisa Jackson and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the legislators asked for a meeting with State Department officials over concerns with the environmental impact of the line.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Collin Peterson are two Minnesota Democrats who broke with their party on restrictions to the Environmental Protection Agency in its monitoring and enforcement of greenhouse gases. Klobuchar’s votes were criticized by environmental groups while at least one conservative took her to task for not supporting strong enough restrictions. During the budget showdown, Peterson played an important role in a controversial measure to prevent the EPA from monitoring greenhouse gases.
The U.S. House has voted 255-172 in favor of restricting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The measure — which was cosponsored by Minnesota Republican Reps. Michele Bachmann and John Kline, along with Democrat Collin Peterson — now goes to to the U.S. Senate for a vote, where it needs a two-thirds majority of support to pass.
Science is still unclear how much humans contribute to global climate change, but the consensus seems to be “it’s a modest amount,” former Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Friday in an Iowa radio interview. “I think climate change occurs, but the bulk of it is natural, historic trends in the climate,” he said. “There is some suggestion that humans have caused some of it, but the answer is not a government, top-down scheme.”
Rep. Michele Bachmann’s announcement last week that she’s mulling the idea of becoming a potential contender for the GOP nomination for president in 2012 has brought about a new round of fact-checking her statements this week. PolitiFact gave her a “Pants on Fire” rating on Tuesday, while Poligraph gave her an “inconclusive” on Wednesday. A member of Congress even used committee testimony this week to try and debunk one of her more frequent claims.
The Minnesota Legislature is debating lifting a moratorium on new nuclear power plants in the state while the world watches a nuclear crisis in Japan following one of the largest earthquakes and tsunamis in modern history. Both Sen. Al Franken and Rep. Michele Bachmann weighed in on the safety of nuclear power, and the two politicians, diametrically opposed on most issues, both said roughly the same thing: Proceed but with caution.
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