The Mankato Free Press reports in Solving problems through BlueGreen Alliance:
The BlueGreen Alliance is a collaboration between blue-collar unions and the environmentalists of the Sierra Club. And its executive director is Mankato native David Foster, who came to the job as a regional director for the United Steelworkers union.
“I like to think of southern Minnesota today as really being the ground-zero of the new economy,” Foster said at a meeting Saturday morning at the Local 49 Union Hall in Mankato.
Wind energy, which is abundant in southern Minnesota and has the potential to be greatly expanded, is one of six areas the alliance wants to fund through a $100 billion federal investment. The others are solar power, advanced biofuels, an improved electrical transmission grid, improved energy conservation in the nation’s buildings and investments in passenger and freight rail systems.
Driving to and from Worthington yesterday, we went by or through several wind farms. Impressive.
The paper reports that Congressman Walz was at the meeting:
Congressman Tim Walz, DFL-Mankato, attended the meeting and said the proposal makes so much sense that Democrats and Republicans in Congress should be able to rally around it.
“This type of alliance is just the sort of thing that’s going to break the partisan gridlock,” Walz said.
In the letters section, Alan Bray of St. Peter tells readers Walz listens to, respects visitors to Washington:
I write in support of Representative Tim Walz in his efforts to be re-elected this fall.
During a three-week stay in Washington, D.C. last summer, I attempted to schedule a face-to-face meeting with my state and district representatives. While Sen. Amy Klobuchar included me in a group meeting with other Minnesotans and Sen. Norm Coleman declined to meet with me at all, Walz gave me a half-hour of one-on-one conversation time even though his day was very busy.
I was thankful and impressed. Walz listened to my concerns, treated me with respect, and followed up on our visit later.
Walz will get my vote in November. I recommend him highly.
Cynics take note: we searched the FEC database to see if Bray was a large contributor to Walz. Nope. Mr. Google fetched up information about one "Alan Bray" in "St. Peter Minnesota". Sounds like a good citizen.
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