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State Representative Andrew Falk
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-4228
For more information contact: Matt Swenson 651-297-8406
Column/LTE
GOVERNOR’S ENERGY POLICIES FULL OF AIR
As unemployment lingers at 7.3 percent in Minnesota, China’s economy is booming. A recent CBS News report showed that even though China burns ‘a mountain of coal’ to fuel its country of 1.3 billion people, the Chinese are working hard to cash-in on the emerging green economy – moving aggressively toward the largest, most productive clean energy economy in the world.
Chinese entrepreneurs are beating America to the punch. With the backing of their government, private Chinese investors are creating millions of middle-class jobs in manufacturing and maintenance of solar panels, wind turbines, and other clean energy tools the world will soon rely on.
Unless we act quickly, the United States will soon replace our crippling alliance on Middle-Eastern oil with an equally destructive economic dependence on Chinese solar panels and wind turbines. All the while, Minnesota families remain beholden to rising foreign energy prices.
As America’s trade deficit with China widens, and more Minnesota jobs continue getting shipped overseas, this is not the time to further stimulate the Chinese economy. But at a time when our state should be aggressively moving forward in clean energy manufacturing, Governor Pawlenty keeps holding Minnesota back – giving China a head start in a race our state and country can’t afford to lose.
Just last week the Governor line-item vetoed planning and design funding for a wind turbine at Minnesota West Community and Technical College in Canby. The turbine would have served as a valuable workforce training tool for local students learning new clean energy trade skills – local skills sorely needed in today’s globally competitive economy.
When I got word the project had been vetoed, I was more than disappointed. In fact, I was surprised. Could this be the same Governor who just two years ago helped found the multi-state Governor’s Wind Energy Coalition? Could it be the same Governor who three years ago signed into law the strongest Renewable Energy Standard in the nation?
Then I remembered it wasn’t. This Governor has higher political aspirations. And nowadays, his energy policies shift with the political winds and bend to the ultra-partisan pressures of the national Republican Party. The innovative energy and economic policies Governor Pawlenty spoke in favor of just months ago are now full of nothing but hot air. Good ideas and promises laid waste in the dust of a distant presidential campaign trail.
Meanwhile, 215,000 Minnesotans remain unemployed. Another 20,000 have given up looking for jobs altogether, and 90,000 Minnesotans are working only part-time at a fraction of their former salaries.
Every step Tim Pawlenty takes closer to the campaign trail is one big step backward for Minnesota’s economy and clean energy future. With only eight months left in office, how much more damage one Governor can do to our economy? How many more good-paying jobs will he postmark for China? How much farther behind will Minnesota fall as one man ignores the best interests of his state in pursuit of the presidency?
Like his empty clean energy promises, the answers to those questions are blowing in the wind.
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