St. Paul documentary filmmaker Jim Tittle was one of the first to take a close look at "The Price of Sand" when he learned in 2011 that energy production company Windsor Permian bought land near his parents' home in Goodhue County's Hay Creek Township, but isn't the last person asking that question.
A pair of stories in the LaCrosse Tribune extricate some of the price of sand in Wisconsin. In Natural gas boom fuels frac sand mining, political spending, staff writer Chris Hubbach reports that political spending by industry interests increased 21 times since 2007:
Just as frac sand mines have popped up across western Wisconsin in
the past half decade, so too has political spending from the sand and
natural gas industries.
Since 2007, contributions from industry
interests ballooned more than 21 times, from just $18,762 to more than
$413,000 last year, according to analysis by the Wisconsin Democracy
Campaign. . . .
A total of 100 Republican candidates and committees received
$710,790, while 44 Democratic candidates and committees received just
$47,104. Nearly 70 percent of the contributions — totaling $520,266 —
went to Gov. Scott Walker during the past two elections.
With
$8,525 in contributions, former Sen. Dan Kapanke of La Crosse was among
the state’s top five recipients in the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign
analysis. The others included Sen. Alberta Darling, Lt. Gov. Rebecca
Kleefisch and Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, all Republicans.
In
addition to oil and gas companies, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign
based its findings on contributions from 17 companies — or their
employees — with interests in sand mining. . . .
However, it excluded some large donors — such as Wisconsin Manufacturers
and Commerce — that support frac sand mining but also lobby for other
interests, said Mike McCabe, director of the nonpartisan campaign
finance watchdog group. . . .
Read the whole thing at the Tribune. Bluestem will be curious to see if the flow of contributions and lobbying spills across the Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers.
The paper also ran a story from the Associated Press, Wisconsin budget committee approves frac sand mining plan, which details how nearly $447,000 is being pulled from the state's state’s environmental management fund to inspect frac sand mines:
Money in the environmental management fund comes from a number of
sources, including fees landfills pay the state, vehicle environmental
impact fees and pesticide fees. The money goes toward recycling,
cleaning up contaminated land and fighting pollution run-off from farm
fields.
It's curious that not only is money being pulled from the environmental funds, other industry is paying for the frac sand interests. That's Walker's Wisconsin.
A scenic 10-mile stretch of Wisconsin bluff land would be off-limits to frac-sand mining under a proposed ordinance that has strong local support but must overcome a pro-business climate that has made the Badger State the nation’s hottest silica sand-mining range.
If the proposed no-frac-sand zone succeeds in the eclectic Lake Pepin shoreline corridor anchored by the villages of Stockholm and Pepin, it will be rare, if not unprecedented. Wisconsin has approved about 100 frac-sand projects in the past four years — more than any other state — and no Minnesota or Wisconsin county has flatly banned frac-sand mining in an area that covers multiple local jurisdictions.
Unlike the environmental concerns expressed in many failed frac-sand fights, the argument in the Stockholm-Pepin area is economic.
A study commissioned from two University of Wisconsin-Madison professors by Lake Pepin Partners in Preservation found that frac-sand operations “have the potential to significantly impair property values and tourist activity in Stockholm and Pepin districts.”
Mavity said the study’s details should matter to the 12 elected supervisors who will decide the issue in the coming months. That’s because the area outlined in the proposed ban is a prime economic engine for Wisconsin’s smallest county, population 7,390. . . .
But the Stockholm-Pepin study quoted a real estate agent who said that the mere possibility of frac-sand mining already has damaged the local housing market, where values and unit growth were the highest of any sector in the county from 2000 to 2010. . . .
“For these particular communities, the costs of local frac-sand activity may exceed the benefits in both the short and long run,” the study said.
The study comes on the heels of a report issued last week by the Institute for Trade and Agriculture Policy, the Wisconsin Farmers Union and the Wisconsin Towns Association that challenged conventional wisdom about the economic benefits of the sand industry.
Bluestem suspects that industrial-scale sand mining is great for large corporations, lobbyists, legislators' campaign committees and flacks, but not so much for many of the rest of people in the Driftless region.
At two in the morning, the Minnesota House finally took up the bill to allow home-based childcare providers and personal care attendants to organize and vote on union representation.
Thank you Mr. Speaker and Members. What I'd like to do with this amendment is to require all signatures for the [union] solicitation materials to be printed in at least 14 point font. I'd like to avoid fine print. Smaller type can be hard on the eyes and even cause headaches according to the National Institute on Aging.
We do have an example of this in statute with park closings . . ."using the closure statements the following language must include in a font no smaller than 14 points." So I would just like to include that for the first part here on the childcare signatures.
It's a good amendment and I would urge your support on this one.
Make type size at least 12 point, 13 point, or 14 point.
Type that is too small can be hard on the eyes and can even cause a
headache. When selecting a type size, keep in mind that some fonts are
naturally bigger than others. For example, look at Georgia vs. Times New
Roman. Both of these fonts are in 13 point type size and yet Georgia is
bigger. Use 14 point type size when working with smaller fonts, like
Times New Roman. Headings should be even larger so they will stand out.
If your audience has low vision, consider using larger fonts, like 16
point or 18 point. However, for older readers who do not have low vision
problems, font sizes that are too large (greater than 14 point) may be
difficult to read. [emphasis added]
Throughout the debate, Republicans stood up against fine print on union materials. Former English teacher Sondra Erickson discussed her bonafides as a graphic designer, for example.
Bluestem applauds the offensive on fine print and looks forward to Ron Kresha, Mary Franson, graphic designer Sondra Erickson, Joyce Peppin and other members of the Republican House Caucus standing up for readability in all documents that Minnesotans may have occasion to read in the course of business.
A modest proposal on large type format equality
Let us suggest that not only union organizing documents, but all terms and conditions, contracts and other documents distributed by banks, consumer credit companies, mortgaged lenders, payday lenders and pawnbrokers be printed in 14 pt type. Or larger.
Indeed, given the urgency of this issue, first pressed by Republicans at 2:00 a.m. this morning, we're shocked that they haven't proposed this before. (The amendment was withdrawn after much discussion).
Unless the early morning fantods over fonts was simply time-wasting concern trolling, the Republican House caucus should have golden opportunity today to demonstrate their commitment to Reader Rights and Liberty.
Will the House Republican Caucus be bold, bold we say, and ask that the House rules on amendments be suspended, and ask their colleagues from across the aisle to require banks and mortgage lenders to produce all home loans, mortgages, and documents related to foreclosures, loan modifications, and evictions in at least 14 point size type, regardless of the font?
Surely, if Kresha's crusade is worthing of imposing on organized labor, banks and other lenders deserve big honking print as well.
At Bluestem's request, our friends at The Uptake are pulling the video of this morning's Fontgate debate. We'll post it here when it is available.
Meanwhile, Schmit lanuched an air war, the Red Wing Republican Eagle's Michael Brun reports in A bird’s-eye view of mining:
While debate over mining policy continues in St. Paul, Sen. Matt
Schmit chartered flights out of Red Wing Regional Airport Friday for
reporters to get a bird’s-eye view of the impact frac sand mines are
having across the river in Wisconsin.
The roughly hourlong flight,
piloted by Jim McIlrath from Frontenac in his homemade, single-engine
plane, toured more than a dozen mines dotting the Wisconsin countryside
around Menomonie and Eau Claire. . . .
. . .The Red Wing Democrat has been an active proponent in the Senate for increased regulation for frac sand mining in Minnesota.
He
has been involved with a number of mining-related bills in his
inaugural legislative session, including sponsoring an amendment to an
environmental bill that would prohibit frac sand mining within a mile of
state trout streams in southeastern Minnesota.
Read the rest at the Red Wing Republican Eagle. Meanwhile, in the Fillmore County, rural Houston resident Joan Redig noted in a Letter about Senator Miller and sand mining:
Sen. Matt Schmit of Red Wing, working with Trout Unlimited, has proposed provisions to protect trout streams in Southeast Minnesota from damage resulting from frac sand mining. He wanted these provisions included in the Game and Fish Policy Bill, Senate File 796. Pristine cold water springs in our karst area create some of the best trout streams in the United States. Frac sand mining threatens to pollute this water, and disrupt the flow of springs in ways that would raise the water temperature. Death for our trout. Our state has invested millions in stocking and protecting these streams. Trout fishing has provided over a billion dollars in economic activity in the Driftless Area. These special provisions in SF 796 only apply to the Paleozoic Plateau, which is our part of the Driftless Area.
We live within a mile of an old quarry being considered for frac sand mining. It is at the head of a drainage system which feeds our springs and a stream which flows into Money Creek, a tributary of Root River. All of this is threatened because we have no state level standards to protect our region’s trout streams. Sen. Schmit proposed: a mile setback from trout streams; a limit on how much groundwater frac sand facilities could use; and limiting mining to within 25 feet of the water table. DNR Commissioner Landwehr testified we need all of these provisions to protect the trout streams and groundwater. Despite this knowledge, Sen. Miller cast the deciding vote to kill these provisions. . . .
Finish reading the letter at the Journal. Bluestem understands that there's been discussion in the environment, natural resources and ag bill conference committee, but audio archives have yet to be posted. We'll listen to see what of interest was said and report back as they become available.
Photo: A silica sand mine near Menomonie, Wis. Aerial photo by Michael
Brun/Republican Eagle.
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Today the Star Tribune newspaper ran an editorial in support of strong regulation of the frac sand industry. The editorial, entitled "Minnesota Legislature must protect trout streams," says in part:
“Schmit’s common-sense legislation, which
will likely face a critical Senate floor vote today, proposes a
reasonable 5,000-foot-setback for sand mines from trout streams and the
springs that feed them. Mining also couldn’t occur within 25 feet of the
water table. The aim is straightforward: to protect the flow of the
cold, clear waters that are the lifeblood of the region’s renowned trout
fishery and, by extension, the jobs dependent on angling tourism.
Cutting off springs or groundwater flow through careless excavation
could reduce stream flows and increase water temperature to levels
lethal to trout...The setbacks called for in the legislation are based
on the best available research and would significantly reduce the risk
of environmental damage. Waiting years to gather data for a more
tailored approach isn’t practical. The damage to critical trout habitat
may already have been done by then."
This vote is happening today on the Senate floor as early as
mid-morning. Sen. Matt Schmit of Red Wing will offer his amendment on
the Senate floor to the Omnibus Game and Fish Bill (Senate File 796) to
protect southeast Minnesota trout streams from frac sand mining and
processing.
Take Action. Contact your Senator immediately and
urge them to support Sen. Schmit’s amendment. You can find your state
Senator's name and contact information onlinehere, or by calling 651-296-0504 or 888-234-1112.
Suggested message: “Today Sen. Matt Schmit will
offer an amendment on the Senate floor to protect southeast Minnesota
trout streams from frac sand mining. I strongly encourage you to support
this amendment, which will include a setback from trout streams for
frac sand mines. The Star Tribune editorial had it right today
when it said that these setbacks "are based on the best available
research and would significantly reduce the rise of environmental
damage." I will check back in tomorrow to see how you voted on this
amendment."
You can watch the debate on the Senate floor online here.
The DFL legislature is prepared to sell out Southeastern Minnesota to industrial sand mining interests, despite widespread grassroots appeals for relief.
Environmental activists who pushed ambitious legislation to slow the advance of frac sand mining in Minnesota have been soundly defeated on their central proposals and, with less than two weeks left in the 2013 legislative session, are clinging to a fragile game and fish amendment as their last hope for a substantial breakthrough.
The amendment, which would block excavation within a mile of any trout stream in southeastern Minnesota, is strongly backed by Gov. Mark Dayton as a way to prevent an explosion of sand mining in a region where the state has invested millions of dollars over decades to nurture a blue-ribbon fishery.
But as the session winds down, even that idea is meeting resistance in a Legislature that has been largely receptive to the industry’s message that more regulation is unnecessary and will only kill jobs and economic growth.
“It’s the only substantial [frac sand] standard left this session,’’ said John Lenczewski, executive director of Minnesota Trout Unlimited.
“Everything else is just fluff,’’ said Amy Nelson, a frac sand opponent from the Red Wing area. The trout stream language, which could face a critical vote on the Senate floor as early as Thursday, has been painted by opponents as a de-facto mining ban in southeastern Minnesota. Industry supporters also say the measure is a “slippery slope’’ that could potentially hurt taconite mining on the Iron Range and even the construction aggregate business.
Another factor that the article doesn't take up is that few of the state's major environmental groups issued public
policy statements or provided testimony on the proposed legislation.
With the exception of Trout Unlimited and Land Stewardship Project, the
citizens were largely on their own. (It will be curious to see which groups that stood silent will use this issue for fundraising--we'll let you know).
Kennedy reports that the governor will meet with industry reps today to push for the pro-trout legislation:
But Dayton told reporters Wednesday that he is cautiously optimistic the legislation will move forward.
“I strongly support that position and will do everything I can in conference committee to get it enacted,’’ he said.
Meanwhile, the governor scheduled a private meeting for Thursday with industry representatives, labor leaders and the commissioners of the Department of Natural Resources, Pollution Control Agency and Department of Health.
Bluestem hopes that he'll succeed in swaying the legislature where thousands of concerned citizens have failed. Praise goes to freshman senator Matt Schmit for listening to his constituents, unlike Winona area senator Jeremy Miller, who cast a deciding committee vote to kill Schmit's trout stream protection.
Photo: On Tuesday, St. Mary's prof Jane Cowgill, who favors Schmit's bill, held up a "fishstick." The legislature favors Mrs. Paul's over Southeastern Minnesota's trout. Photo by John Kaul.
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Hours after meeting with Representative Michelle Bachmann (R-CD6), Minnesota Latino immigrants remain hopeful, but cautious.
While grateful for an opportunity to discuss the issue of immigration reform with Representative Bachmann, members of organization La Asamblea de Derechos Civiles were disappointed that Representative Bachmann had opened up the meeting to an out-of-state congressperson whose comments in the meeting were inappropriate. While Representative Bachmann may believe that others are experts at the topic at hand, La Asamblea members believe that Representative Bachmann should be an expert in attempting to understand the experiences of her constituents.
However, La Asamblea members do applaud Representative Bachmann for agreeing to continue listening to stories and constituent perspectives regarding immigration reform. . .
The press release went on to praise the tone of the meeting:
"The meeting had a very positive tone of building bridges between the Latino community and Mrs. Bachmann. At the meeting, we had the impression that freedom for many immigrants is closer and we made it clear to her that the Latinos have a growing voting muscle in politics that we are ready to use," said Pablo Tapia, La Asamblea organizer.
Bluestem has learned that the other member of Congress was Alabama representative Mo Brooks, who serves his state's fifth congressional district on the Tennessee border.
Update: Bluestem's original post was not clear about the logistics of the meeting, which took place in Minnesota with Bachmann and one of her Washington staff members. Brooks joined the meeting via speaker phone. [end update]
Brooks 2011 statement: "I will doing anything short of shooting" undocumented workers
"As your congressman on the House floor, I will do anything short of
shooting them," Brooks said. "Anything that is lawful, it needs to be
done because illegal aliens need to quit taking jobs from American
citizens."
Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, (D-Texas) head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, blasted Brooks remarks.
"Rhetoric referencing acts of violence has no place in the
discussion for realistic solutions to our country's immigration
problems," Gonzalez said. "Words have consequences"
Brooks 2.0: Gentler anti-immigrant rhetoric in 2013
We don't know yet what "inappropriate" comments Brooks made in the recent meeting, but he's one of a handful of congress people who have been critical of current bipartisan efforts to move comprehensive immigration reform.
His rhetoric does seem to have mellowed in the last two years.
After the media reported that an immigration deal among the Senate’s Gang of Eight was imminent, a number of conservatives in the House told their leadership on Wednesday that they didn’t want to get steamrolled by the upper chamber.
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) told The Hill, “We probably won’t know anything until a bill is drafted and presented.
“Keep in mind, it’s just eight people. It’s not sanctioned by anybody,” he noted, adding “it’s going to be very difficult for me to agree to ratify illegal conduct.”
. . .With both groups seemingly close to producing legislation, King and
the others believe it’s time for them to make their voices heard before
the momentum becomes overwhelming.
“We’ve held our powder dry,” King said, but “decided its time
to come forward now because we are seeing the inertia and we are
concerned about having this wash over us and not have the opportunity
for the constitutional conservatives in this country and in this
Congress to have their voice heard.”
A group of Republican House members led by Iowa Rep. Steve King spoke forcefully in opposition to a mass legalization before first solving the problem of illegal immigration at an event with reporters Thursday. . . .
Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks said that the immigration system should serve Americans and stressed that in terms of immigration, America “is the most compassionate nation in history when it comes to allowing foreigners to become citizens of our country.”
“I want to emphasize the culture that we have in America, that we welcome immigration,” he said, explaining the issue is illegal immigration.
“We have to make a choice: Are we going to have laws, or not have laws? If we are not going to have open borders then that means we have to have laws that restrict who can come and who cannot come in. And we have to enforce those laws,” Brooks said, explaining that it is only a small percentage of people “who have chosen to disregard our laws as their first act on American soil.”
He added that with so many people wishing to come to America, the country should focus on accepting the most valuable and productive people.
“I urge that we get behind an immigration policy that focuses on bringing to America those who are clearly going to be on the productive side of our economy, less likely to be on the consumptive side of our economy,” he said, adding that illegal immigrants contribute to keeping wages low and Americans out of work.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio went on seven Sunday talk shows
to pitch a bipartisan immigration reform deal, while a handful of
Republican lawmakers famous for their wacky cable news interviews can't
get any attention. An anti-immigration "gang of six" in the House is
trying to stop the pro-immigration "gang of eight" in the Senate, The National Review's Robert Costa
reports, but hardly anyone's listening. The six are cable TV favorites:
Minnesota's Michele Bachmann, Iowa's Steve King, Texas' Louie Gohmert,
Alabama's Mo Brooks, Pennsylvania's Lou Barletta, and California's
Dana Rohrabacher. There were zero "anti-amnesty" Sunday show guests
the week before Rubio's grand tour. The most popular cable guests of
the six -- Bachmann, King, and Gohmert -- haven't been invited on cable
to talk immigration in the last three months, according to Lexis Nexis.
They complain the GOP isn't listening to them either.
In 2007, Costa explains, Republican immigration opponents "dominated
the headlines" and "scared off many Republicans who might otherwise have
supported it." Now, "the anti-legalization warriors wonder why their
party suddenly seems to be ignoring their concerns." But once the bill
comes out, he writes, "they think they, not Rubio, will be the
Republicans who shape the debate, especially on talk radio and within
the conservative movement." But that hasn't happened so far! According
to Lexis Nexis -- which, granted, doesn't have every single word uttered
on cable news -- Bachmann, King, and Gohmert haven't been able to get
much time on Fox to sell their view. They're all far more popular on
MSNBC as bad guys than on Fox as good guys.
Check out the tally sheet at the Atlantic Wire. In the National Review article, A Gang of Six Plots a Revolt Costa writes:
King and his crew are not driving the negotiations, and they
increasingly feel like outsiders within their own party. “The meetings
of the Gang of Eight and the secret meetings in the House of
Representatives — the people who have been standing up for the
Constitution and the rule of law haven’t been invited to those
meetings,” King tells the assembled group of reporters. The other
huddlers — Michele Bachmann (Minn.), Lou Barletta (Pa.), Mo Brooks
(Ala.), Louie Gohmert (Texas), and Dana Rohrabacher (Calif.) — nod and
grimace. “We’ve got all the rich guys and the elitists talking to each
other,” Rohrabacher says. “Unfortunately us regular folks don’t have
that kind of coordination.”
Brooks has long been in opposition to allowing leniency to those who
skirted the law to live in the United States. In 2011, Brooks said at a
town hall meeting that the U.S. should "do anything short of shooting them" to keep illegal aliens out of the country.
Tonight,
Brooks pointed to the financial burden illegal aliens are putting on
the economy. He said the U.S. Treasury was writing checks for about $4
billion per year in child tax credits to illegal aliens who are
submitting fraudulent tax forms. He also said that estimates in
Washington indicate illegal aliens are contributing $20 million per year
to the tax system while consuming $100 million per year in taxes.
He acknowledged, however, that his views on immigration are "in the minority" in Washington. Immigration reform, including the amnesty program, has been a rare issue receiving bipartisan support.
Brooks' expertise: caucus memberships
It's curious that Bachmann would invite a member of the Gang of Six to meet with Minnesotans on immigration reform, since that might chill the discussion. Brooks was the author of the died-in-committee "Jobs for Americans Act of 2011."
The caucuses favor closed borders, withholding all federal funding to
cities that do not strictly enforce federal immigration status laws,
and other measures generally characterized as anti-immigrant by those
seeking comprehensive immigration reform.
Research on immigrants and job creation
While Brooks' central assertion--that undocumented workers rob Americans of jobs--is a staple of anti-immigrant talking points, the record is mixed. The New York Times Magazine asked in 2012 Do Illegal Immigrants Actually Hurt the U.S. Economy?, noting:
. . .Labor economists have concluded that
undocumented workers have lowered the wages of U.S. adults without a
high-school diploma — 25 million of them — by anywhere between 0.4 to
7.4 percent.
The impact on everyone else, though, is surprisingly positive. Giovanni
Peri, an economist at the University of California, Davis, has written a
series of influential papers comparing the labor markets in states with
high immigration levels to those with low ones. . . . In states with more undocumented immigrants, Peri said, skilled
workers made more money and worked more hours; the economy’s
productivity grew. From 1990 to 2007, undocumented workers increased
legal workers’ pay in complementary jobs by up to 10 percent.
As Congress considers immigration reform, experts across the political spectrum say American jobs are safe.
That
immigrants take the jobs of American-born citizens is “something that
virtually no learned person believes in,” Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration
expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, said at a Thursday panel.
“It’s sort of a silly thing.”
Most economists don’t find immigrants driving down wages or jobs, the Brookings Institution's
Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney wrote in May. In fact, “on average,
immigrant workers increase the opportunities and incomes of Americans,”
they write. Foreign-born workers don’t affect the employment rate
positively or negatively, according to a 2011 analysis
from the conservative American Enterprise Institute. And a study
released Wednesday by the liberal Center for American Progress suggests
that granting legal status to undocumented workers might even create
jobs.
The CAP study,
led by the visiting head of the Washington College economics
department, sought to predict what would happen under immigration
reform. The researchers considered a handful of scenarios. In each, it
was presumed that the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants would
be immediately granted legal status. They then looked at the effect of
those undocumented immigrants not being granted citizenship at all over a
decade, getting it immediately, or getting it in five years.
Legal
status alone would lead to the creation of 121,000 extra jobs annually
over the next 10 years, they found. Getting citizenship within five
years would increase that to 159,000 jobs per year. And receiving both
legal status and citizenship this year would create an extra 203,000
jobs annually.
Photo: Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks, Michele Bachmann's go-to guy for meetings with Minnesota Latinos advocating comprehensive immigration reform.
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I spent some time yesterday watching the Minnesota Ways & Means committee debate the proposed minimum wage changes. While there are many things about the debate that caused a spike in my blood pressure, I am really concerned about those who think farm workers do not deserve the same rights as other workers in our state’s economy.
For some reason paying farm workers overtime after 40 hours is sacrilegious. Rep Sarah Anderson (R-Plymouth) tweeted, “When Minneapolis runs the #mnleg, they think farming is a 40 hour per week kind of job.”
Don Davis in his April 29th Capitol Chatter column quotes DFL Rep. Jeanne Poppe, “Ag workers are not necessarily like factory workers where they can clock in and clock out.” No, it is not necessarily a 40 hour per week job. Yes, you have to often “make hay when the sun shines”.
But then, a lot of jobs are like that. It is the beginning of the construction season and you will see workers taking advantage of the daylight and good weather to get as much done as possible.
Electrical workers recently worked seven days a week restoring power in SW Minnesota after the recent ice storms.
I wonder what the difference is between a worker putting in 70 hours a week on the farm and one putting in 70 hours a week paving a road. Both will be tired at the end of the week but the farm worker will get the shaft. Some legislators need to quit fantasizing about the “family farm” and realize that it is a business that should be held to the same standard for workers’ rights as other businesses. Get a clue people. It’s not your Grandpa’s farm.
A couple years ago I posted the lyrics to the song Eight Hours, by I.G. Blanchard, in a note to Facebook. I think it is relevant again today.
Eight Hours
We mean to make things over,
We are tired of toil for naught
With but bare enough to live upon
And ne'er an hour for thought.
We want to feel the sunshine
And we want to smell the flow'rs
We are sure that God has willed it
And we mean to have eight hours;
We're summoning our forces
From the shipyard, shop and mill
Back during the Republican Revolution in the 1990s, the drive to cut wages by weakening overtime took the form of then Senator John Ashcroft's "Family Friendly Workplace Act," but the principle was the same: allow private business to offer workers the supposedly voluntary option of working long hours, then taking time off rather than overtime. Nevermind that loophole that might allow management to schedule an employee for 60 hours one week, 20 hours the next, without receiving either comp time or overtime.
That was the 1990s version of family-friendly, because moms especially want time off and don't care so much about their paychecks, or so the "family friendly" narrative goes.
Say what
you will, but anti-worker politicians are good at giving deceptive names
to things. “Right to work” takes away your rights at work. “Paycheck
protection” puts your wages at risk. And who could forget Paul Ryan’s
plan to “strengthen Medicare” which ends Medicare as we know it.
House Republicans are pushing the “Workplace Families Flexibility Act of 2013,”
which they claim would allow busy working parents to spend more time
with their kids. That’s bogus. The bill replaces the 40-hour work week
with a “comp time” accrual system that would allow employers greater control over their hourly employee’s schedule.
What’s worse? The bill ends ”time-and-a-half” overtime pay for hourly
and non-exempt workers as we know it, giving renewed incentive for
businesses to work their employees as long as they want with near
impunity.
In other words, the bill does the opposite of what House Republicans say it will. . . .
Check out the deets in the post. Here in Minnesota's Seventh District, we'll be seeing web ads urging Blue Dog Democrat Collin Peterson to enlist in the Republican War on Women's paychecks. (Peterson's already in with the attack on reproductive rights and raising the minimum wage).
The National Republican Congressional Committee is demanding vulnerable House Democrats "support more freedom for working moms" in new web ads, a sign the committee is trying to improve the party's standing with female voters.
The ads call on Democrats to back the GOP-drafted "Working Families Flexibility Act," which would allow employers to give comp time for overtime hours rather than pay employees for them. The bill will likely be voted on in the House next week...
But a spokester for the D-Trip flipped the narrative:
Democrats fired back, pointing out that most House Republicans voted against the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Violence Against Women Act.
"House Republicans wish women voters would forget their past and ignore their agenda, but women voters are too smart for that," said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokeswoman Emily Bittner. "This Republican Congress has been the most extreme, anti-woman legislature in American history with an agenda to deny women equal pay, quality health care services and even domestic violence protections. If Republicans think their problem is the style of their marketing campaign — not the substance they're selling — they've missed the message of the 2012 elections.
Bluestem hopes that Peterson can stuff his latent Republican tendencies back in the closet with his boots and resist the urge to cut working moms' paychecks.
Photo: Blue Dog Seventh District Congressman Collin Peterson.
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Our friends at Clean Up the River Environment asked people from the Upper Minnesota River Valley and West Central Minnesota to travel to the state capitol for an Earth Day rally for clean energy. A group of enthusiastic MPIRG students road in from U of M Morris; hundreds of passionate high school students turned out to join them.
In addition to those rallying in the rotunda, over 300 citizens showed up to lobby for solar and other clean energy on a day graced by another spring snowstorm and difficult driving in greater Minnesota.
Renewable energy advocates on Monday afternoon rallied in the state
Capitol rotunda in support of energy policy legislation that seeks to
boost solar energy in Minnesota. Gov. Mark Dayton and House Speaker Paul Thissen
were among the officials who rallied a couple hundred activists to
support bills in the House and Senate that would call for utilities to
generate 4 percent of their electricity from solar energy by 2030. The
bills sponsored by Rep. Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, and Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, had committee hearings on Monday with neither being voted on.
Dayton said the nation’s energy policy “has been to hang on to the
status quo for a long as possible.” He said he hopes Minnesota someday
runs on 100 percent renewable fuels. . . .
. . .“We need your help,” Hortman said. “Because as you know, the energy
lobbyists are here. The folks who like coal are here. The folks who like
natural gas are here. …You need to make sure you let your senator and
your representative know: Minnesota is ready for solar.”
The legislation is controversial, however, and was laid over on
Monday night in the Senate Environment, Economic Development and Energy
Finance Division in order to find a compromise in the next couple days.
Here's a video of several high points in the rally: Paul Bunyan puts in an appearance, as do labor environmentalist Javier Morillo-Alicea, polar explorer Will Steger and Governor Dayton.
Bluestem will swap out the Youtube with a higher quality video when we return to our fast prairie connection.
Photo: A few of the University of Minnesota Morris students who braved slippery roads to rally for clean energy.
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Since the White House Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Office
of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) began reviewing the Labor
Department’s proposed rule to reduce by one-half the permissible
workplace exposure to respirable crystalline silica more than two year
ago, the US has seen a dramatic increase in industrial sand mining, a
major route of workers’ exposure to silica dust. As Celeste Monforton reported for The Pump Handle
on March 20th, OIRA’s review of the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration’s (OSHA) draft proposed rule crystalline silica exposure
has now been going on for more than 800 days. During this time – since
2010 – the amount of industrial sand production in the US has increased
more than 50 percent. Industrial sand production is but one of the ways
workers can be exposed to the silica dust that can put them at increased
risk of developing lung cancer and other lung diseases, including
silicosis. Exposures often occur in stonecutting, sandblasting and
foundry work, in construction and – spurred by recent growth in natural
gas extraction – among workers producing, transporting and using
industrial sand in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations.
According to the most recent US Geological Survey (USGS) estimates,
US industrial sand production jumped an estimated 37% between 2010 and
2011 and another 14% between 2011 and 2012, with approximately 57% of
this sand destined in 2011 for US hydraulic fracturing operations. USGS
estimates that in 2011, sales of frac sand increased by 77% compared to
those in 2010. USGS calls the production and sale of hydraulic
fracturing sand the past several years’ “most important driving force in
the industrial sand and gravel industry.” USGS put the value of
industrial sand production in 2012 at $2.2 billion. . . .
. . .The bottom line . . . appears to be that while US
industrial sand production has skyrocketed – increasing about 50% in the
past two years – the businesses that produce this material and that use
the most of it maintain that it is too costly to improve protection for
workers who may be exposed to respirable silica dust, a known lung
carcinogen. At the same time there appears to be little progress in
expanding information available to workers or the public on where
industrial sand is being used in fracking operations, exactly how much
of this sand is being produced and where – and how many workers this may
put at risk of breathing this dangerous dust.
The city of Winona’s Citizens Environmental Quality Committee on
Thursday began discussing air-quality issues surrounding local frac sand
businesses.
The city’s planning commission and some city council
members have asked the committee to look into whether the city has the
resources and expertise to monitor the levels of silica sand in ambient
air at processing plants within the city.
Assistant city planner
Carlos Espinosa said the city should wait for recommendations from state
agencies and the Minnesota Legislature before writing any air quality
monitoring standards into city code.
Several bills regarding the
silica sand industry are being considered by state lawmakers, and the
state is in the process of setting a standard for airborne crystalline
silica by the end of 2013. There’s currently no state or federal
standard for a safe amount of airborne silica sand. . . .
Another indication of the sort of contentiousness sand mining is creating in Southeastern Minnesota? The Spring Grove Herald's government writer Craig Moorhead reports in New frac sand committee agrees on little in first meeting:
The most telling clue as to just how divisive the issue of frac sand mining has become in southeastern Minnesota is what happened when Houston County's Frac Sand Study Committee began its April 12 meeting. It took over 20 minutes just to approve the agenda. . . .
The bill includes almost $3 million that would go
toward creating a state board to establish standards for silica sand
mining, which is a booming industry in southeastern Minnesota. Lawmakers
have been grappling with how to regulate the budding industry, which
has the potential to be an economic generator as prospectors search for
new deposits of a product oil companies use later in hydraulic
fracturing. Some communities worry that the rush has outpaced
environmental concerns created when the sand is extracted and
transported.
Stay tuned.
Photo: Silica sand dust in Wisconsin. Photo by Jim Tittle.
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Hansen shared news of Kelly's approval as the Minnesota House Government
Operations committee heard the amended bill on Friday, March 15.
In the amended bill, the Environmental Quality Board (EQB) retains responsibility for drawing up standards and selecting a seven-member technical assistance team for local government. Drawn largely from state agency personnel, the
team will become involved in projects when local government requests the
help. Making the request voluntary had been a sticking point in earlier iterations of the language.
Plans created by the team will not require review by the EQB.
Also added: a EQB-maintained reference library of local permits and
ordinances and the development of an air
quality health advisory for silica sand by January 1, 2014.
The bill now heads to the House Environment, Natural Resources
and Agriculture Finance Committee, chaired by environmental champion
Rep. Jean Wagenius (DFL-Minneapolis).
Rep. Phyllis Kahn (DFL-Minneapolis) has also added her name as co-sponsor.
In Friday's Politics in Minnesota article, Sand in the gears, staff writer Charley Shaw took a closer look at the politics of the various house and senate bills. He reports:
. . .The frac sand issue illustrates the ingrained power struggle among DFL
committee chairs with respect to the demands of environment and
industry. The third prong of the power struggle is Gov. Mark Dayton,
whose views on frac sand mining remain a mystery at this point. Dayton
signaled his awareness of the issue before the session began when he
told reporters that frac sand mining would be a “huge” issue. And on
Thursday he sent another signal that he’s tuned into frac sand mining,
releasing a revised budget that includes $1.9 million to pay for a team
of six state agencies and boards that would provide technical assistance
to local units of government related to silica sand mining. The funding
would be supported by new fees on the extraction and processing of
silica sand. . . .
Groundwater, sand mining and sinkholes
In other news, Pioneer Press outdoors columnist Dave Orrick links the paper's ongoing investigation into troubling groundwater use to potential demand on aquifers by the industrial sand mining industry. He reports in Sportsmen should pay attention to groundwater issues:
This week, my colleagues and I are writing on
Minnesota groundwater. Aquifers. Water that invisibly flows through
porous (sand), semi-porous (limestone) and surprisingly porous
(fractured shale) layers of underground rock. The stories focus on
public water supplies, conservation at home and whether we're stressing
these subterranean sponges too much. But there are serious impacts for
outdoors lovers and the places we love. . . .
It's also possible that a frac-sand mining
operation that washes sand with well water and then returns that water
to the same ground, could be conserving water and damaging the local
stream trout populations at the same time. In fact, it's possible that
more traditional limestone- and gravel-mining operations could do the
same, said Steve Klotz, the Lanesboro-area fisheries supervisor for the
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
"Some of the proposals out there are throwing around some big
water appropriations," Klotz said. "We've got one that could potentially
impact the big spring that supplies water to our hatchery."
Decades of shoreline protection and restoration projects in
southeast Minnesota deserve credit for the area's outstanding stream
trout fishery. But an essential facet of the trout's ability to
reproduce naturally, as they are doing in most waters, is the constant
temperature -- usually about 48 degrees -- that water flows, year-round,
when it emerges from springs in the limestone bluffs of the Driftless
Area. Browns and brookies aren't fans of wild temperature fluctuations.
Water doesn't take long to get from the surface to aquifers in the
porous earth, but it takes long enough to reach that temperature, either
by cooling in the summer or warming in the winter.
But the area is prone to sinkholes, Klotz explained. Pull too much water out of an aquifer, and it can collapse. . . .
Check out the whole column at the PiPress. It's no wonder Trout Unlimited is paying close attention to the issue--and letters from informed citizens are peppering the region's newspapers.
Former Red Wing resident Jim Tittle received a call from his mother
two years ago that an open-pit frac sand mine was being considered for
the Hay Creek bluffs south of the city.
“It really threw me for a loop,” said Tittle, who remembered the area well from his youth.
The curious Tittle set off with a video camera to research the issue of
frac sand mining. His work culminated into the documentary film “The
Price of Sand,” premiering Friday March 22 at the Sheldon Theatre in Red
Wing.
The documentary film will also be screened at the Grandview Theater, 1830 Grand Avenue, in St. Paul on March 28, 7:00 p.m.
Brun describes the film-making process:
The documentary features interviews with people on both sides of the
frac sand debate, from displaced homeowners to drivers who found work
with mining companies. The goal of the film was to raise awareness of
the human impact of frac sand mining, Tittle said.
“I want people
to see other peoples’ stories,” Tittle said. “Wherever I could find a
person affected by this, I’d go there and talk to them.”
Tittle
first traveled to mines in Le Sueur County and western Wisconsin,
resulting in a series of YouTube videos that garnered more than 10,000
views in the summer of 2011. But he did not stop there.
“I came
to realize I could either make more YouTube videos or explore the issue
deeper,” Tittle said — and explore he did. Over the next 15 months he
would travel the region interviewing people for a full-length
documentary.
Tittle crowdsourced some of the production costs. Read the whole story at the Republican Eagle.
Here's the freshly edited trailer:
Photo: Bird's eye view of a Wisconsin sand mind. Photo by Jim Tittle. Used with permission.
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Representative Mary Franson makes no secret of her low regard for unions, despite her union leader grandfather. From the attacks on her Family Freedom Act website to her attacks on her 2012 opponent, a retired coach, as "Big Labor Bob," she's against them.
As a former home child care provider, she has ridden point against an organizing drive by AFSCME and SEIU to organize daycares.
But we've never seen her tear up while she's tearing up. We probably would too if we thought the DFL was destroying the world as we know it.
Although it was billed as a legislative town hall meeting, a Friday
gathering in Alexandria felt more like a political platform for
Republican leaders to analyze the DFL’s recent proposals. . . .
A former child care provider, Franson was visibly distraught over the issue.
“I’m just very emotional today because the Democrats are just destroying this state,” she said through tears.
Franson
said child care providers should have the right to run their business
without a union, to choose to be privatized and receive the subsidy.
But it isn't the DFL coming after your children that has Franson distraught; it's also the drive of home health care aides to organize that's bothering her:
“The union is going to denigrate the child care system as we know
it,” she said. “It doesn’t stop with the unions; they’re going after our
disabled people also.”
Franson said it is not only child care
subsidies that are affected. The money available for care of disabled
people will be cut as well.
It's a troubling result to this difficult legislative session," said
Steve Larson, the public policy director at The Arc Minnesota. The
budget outlook for disabled people barely improved despite intense
lobbying from his organization. Larson estimates there are at least $170
million dollars in cuts to waiver and home care programs that serve
people with disabilities, including a pay cut that targets personal care
attendant services provided by non-legally responsible relatives.
"Some of our lowest paid health care
workers that do a tremendous job are now going to have to take a 20
percent cut," Larson said.
The budget included a 1.5 percent across-the-board cut for all health
care funded by Medical Assistance, Minnesota’s Medicaid plan. In
addition, several targeted cuts reduced payments for particular
populations. The most unfair of these was a 20 percent cut for personal
care assistants who provide services to a relative, which goes into
effect on October 1. According to the law, “relative means the parent or
adoptive parent of an adult child, a sibling aged 16 years or older, an
adult child, a grandparent, or a grandchild.”
For example, a PCA providing care to a relative for $10 per hour will
probably be earning $8 under the lower reimbursement rate, while other
PCAs with the same amount of experience at the same agency will continue
to earn $10. In addition, the agencies that employ these critical
caregivers will have to find other ways to cut costs, since their
reimbursement rate will be cut by significantly more than $2 an hour for
PCAs who are related to their clients.
Home care workers seeking the right to form a statewide union
applauded Monday’s decision by the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruling
that a 2011 provision ordering that people who care for elderly or
disabled relatives receive 20 percent less pay than their non-relative
counterparts is unconstitutional and violates the Equal Protection
Clause of the Minnesota Constitution.
Just weeks after going into effect in October, 2011, the provision
was challenged in court and blocked for months by a temporary
restraining order before being upheld in March by Ramsey County District
Court Judge Dale Lindman. It was then delayed by the legislature and
would have gone into effect again on July 1, 2013
Indeed, the cuts are one the reason for coming together, organizers say, as are low pay and no benefits.
But Mary Franson was pleased with slicing the health and human services budget, as she wrote her August 2011 piece, It’s the Spending Stupid:
The fact that we were able to turn Health and Human Services from a
projected growth of over 22% and bend the curve down to less than 5% is
impressive in itself. Even still, Minnesota has a spending problem NOT a
revenue problem and it needs to be seriously addressed.
At the end of the day – we are at war. We are fighting an ideological war. . . .
Apparently, it's ok to slash pay for some of the state's hardest workers in low-paying jobs. But should they organize so that they might avoid the whims of budget battles?
Mary Franson will cry you a river.
Photo: Representative Mary Franson at an anti-union event.
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Adding to the voices asking for a change in state law to grant collective organizing rights to home care workers? Letters to Greater Minnesota newspaper editors. Most recently, Linda Wilcox wrote in Home care workers at the Brainerd Dispatch:
Across Minnesota and here in Brainerd there are people with a job
that is invisible—it’s time to bring us into light. We are called home
care workers and personal care assistants. We provide direct support
for seniors and people with disabilities through Medicare programs so
they can continue living independently at home, rather than in expensive
institutions. . . .
. . .Keeping people out of institutions saves taxpayers money, and the
need for home care workers is on the rise. Unlike nurses or teachers, I
don’t have the right to negotiate for better working conditions, better
pay or more training. Alone, I can’t change anything. That is why I am
urging home care workers to join me in supporting a bill that allows us
to form a union. By joining together we can make life better for
ourselves and our clients. We can fight to stop the budget cuts, get
health insurance and keep our families safe.
Check out the free-wheeling discussion in the comments section. In the Grand Rapids Herald-Review, Rosalie Rutherford of Bovey writes in A home care worker’s union would benefit many:
. . .Right now I have a client who is like a daughter to me. She has
been in a group home and in an assisted living apartment. In both of
those places she didn’t get the type of care that she should have
because she had home care workers who were mostly younger and
unprofessional. They didn’t stay very long either because of the low pay
and lack of benefits, something that would change with a union. A union
would benefit us, and ultimately our clients.
I urge our legislature to support a bill that would give us the
right to form a union so that we could negotiate with the state for
better pay and benefits; a right we currently don’t have. As it is, we
get paid the bare minimum after the money goes through the state and
system. It’s mind boggling how much our employers make and we don’t get
any benefits or decent wages. A union would change that.
Almost 23 years ago, my daughter and I were in a car accident, and I have been a quadriplegic since.
Life has been challenging but rewarding, and
thanks to home care workers, I have been able to live life independently
and in an apartment with my daughter. Our lives were able to resume.
I
resumed my college career and graduated, and my daughter is now working
two jobs and pursuing her master's degree! I thank God for giving me a
supportive and loving family. Without them, I don't think I would have
made it this far.
Since my injury,
my mother has helped care for me as my overnight home care worker.
However, having my mom as my home care worker is not enough, and many
good home care workers I've had leave the profession once a better job
comes along. They are paid low wages and receive no benefits.
Minnesota
faces a looming crisis, as there won't be enough home care workers to
look after our loved ones. Home care workers deserve the right to form a
union, a right they don't have. Increased wages and benefits would help
attract and keep qualified and highly motivated individuals for this
type of work. Also, it will allow for more training opportunities for
home care workers so we can receive the best possible care.
. . .Caring for family members with disabilities at home, rather than sending them to an expensive institution, is a priority. But that requires hiring a home care worker to provide direct support or giving up a career to do it. As a parent of four children who were born with special needs, I have seen both sides of the work. I’ve provided support services for my children as well as other families. I was fortunate enough to take advantage of training opportunities, but most of those opportunities no longer exist for new workers. I now rely on home care workers from outside our home to care for my children, and I have no idea how much training, if any, they’ve received. The thought of leaving my child with an untrained home care worker scares me.
Allowing home care workers to come together to form a union means we will have the opportunity to gain access to training and education opportunities, reduce turnover and enhance the overall quality of the people taking care of those who wish to remain independent in their homes. . . .
The outcome? A stable workforce and improved quality of care for our family members who need support services. Isn’t that what you would want if your life suddenly changed?
In Minnesota right now there are more than 10,000 people who provide
direct support for seniors and people with disabilities in their homes.
These home-care workers allow seniors to retire with dignity and stay in
their homes; they allow people with disabilities to continue living
independently.
I am one of these workers. Before I injured my
knees last summer, I had eight clients and worked full time. One of my
clients was my very own daughter, who is a vulnerable adult. By
November, my knees required surgery, and I’m now unable to care for my
clients, including my daughter. I have no worker’s compensation and no
health insurance. . . .
. . .We do not have the right to negotiate with the state for better
working conditions and better pay — even though the state provides the
money for home-care workers and sets the rates.
Teachers have the
right to organize. Nurses have the right to organize. The work that
home-care workers do isn’t any more important than the work of teachers
or nurses; but it isn’t less important, either. Home-care workers should
have the same right that teachers and nurses have: the right to form a
union if they choose.
I’m a part-time homecare worker and a full time student. I care
for my mother about 20 hours a week, providing behavioral services and
physical assistance.
Without the support services I provide, my mother would have to
rely on an expensive institutionalized level of care, which would hinder
her independence and quality of life. If my wages are to continually be
cut, I would need to get a job elsewhere, and I would not have the time
to attend school, work and assist my mother with her needs.
Homecare workers do valuable work in our society, but it often
goes unnoticed. Cuts to these services not only hurt the people
receiving support, but also the people who provide it. . . .
Will the legislature heed these voices? Or listen to those who frame the question solely in terms how they perceive unions as the adversary--in this case, the great purple satan, rather than working people coming together?
The bills themselves will be heard in a second round of committee hearings next week.
Photo: They're low-paid, under-appreciated, and coming to the Capitol again on March 21 to show their support for
passing the Home Care Bill. Learn more about the event via Facebook.
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Much of the citizen and industry testimony--and those testifying--were repeats from the joint hearing the week before. Schmit offered amendments that added a one-year statewide moratorium to the bill, addressing criticism of the original language by Land Stewardship Project.
Grassroots activists shared their concerns about air and water quality, property values, traffic, tourism and the potential destruction of the landscape.
Along with industry and heavy equipment representatives, Republican state senators were skeptical of the need for the bill--or any additional state oversight of the industrial sand industy.
Peder Larson, a lobbyist representing the Minnesota Industrial Sand Council (MISC), noted that the industry group supports "strong state standards" for environmental review that are already in place. Larson recommended spending the money that would go toward a statewide Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) on hiring more staff for state agencies with oversight of sand mining.
Aggregate and Ready Mix Association President Fred Corrigan, geologist Kristen Pauly, and International Union of Operating Engineers Local 49 Legislative and Political Director Jason George reaffirmed their testimony from a week before that the industry will great jobs balanced with environmental protection.
As the committee deliberated the bill, Senator Julie Rosen (R-Fairmont) defended silica sand mining as both an "energy revolution" and "ag," insisting that rural Minnesotans simply accept dust, noise and smells. The activists who formed the bulk of the hearing room audience guffawed until committee chair John Marty (DFL-Roseville) gavelled the room silent.
She recited a litany of questions she had asked the DNR about drinking water, aquifers and wet mining. She noted that the answers were uncertain, and that local governments were often unable to answer complex technical questions.
She also decried bullying by mining corporations:
And then we can add in the intimidation factors. We will sue you or we will ask to be annexed by the city or a different government unit.
All these factors combined illustrate the need for Schmit's bill
To summarize, to protect the people in these communities across the state, we must have a statewide moratorium which gives the state time to prepare a generic environmental impact statement and our regulatory agencies time set and strengthen standards for this industry.
Beyond that, townships and counties need help. Perhaps the PCA and the DNR could establish area teams that could provide assistance in reviewing industry applications. I don't mean at the end of the process. I mean during the process.
Perhaps a list of environmental consultants that don't play both sides of the fence could be developed. Believe me in this, trust is everything.
It's possible that one environmental consultant Proctor had in mind was Kirsten Pauly, who testified later in the hearing on behalf of MISC.
In January, KEYC-TV, Mankato's CBS/FOX affiliate, reported in Frac Sand Review in Lime Township that that Pauly consulted for Jordan Sands:
Residents of Lime Township get their first full look at a proposed frac sand processing plant.
It
was a tough task to take on, as dozens of residents get a crash course
in how frac sand is made, also learning about the environmental concerns
over this particular process.
Numerous problems were mentioned in the environmental assessment worksheet, or EAW, from water to air to traffic.
The focus however, just may come down to a rare little bird.
Kirsten
Pauly, a geologist who gave the presentation of the EAW, says, "The
focus of the EAW then becomes the loggerhead shrike."
Jordan Sands listed several protective measures they would take to protect the protected bird.
Later in Tuesday's hearing, Republican senators started addressing questions about the state environmental review process to Pauly, rather than to state agency personnel who were on hand. Perhaps this line of questioning illustrates the lack of independence Procter testified undercuts the process--or Pauly's professionalism.
The Senate State and Local Government Committee has yet to schedule a hearing for Schmit's bill.
A few highlights of the testimony:
Watch or listen to the entire hearing at the Environment and Energy Committee's media page.
Forum Communications newspapers in Fargo and Grand Forks report that lawmakers in Minnesota and North Dakota are listening to workers locked out by hardball management. Meanwhile, in a cruel twist, workers cleaning Target stores overnight were locked in, a violation of OSHA law.
Both are signs of breaking bad management that will do anything for the bottomline.
The Fargo Forum notes that "Unlike a worker strike, a lockout is when an organization’s management locks out union workers, often over pay disputes." Workers--sugar refinery employers, classical musicians, and professional hockey players--have been locked out in both states.
Committee Chairman Joe Atkins, DFL-Inver Grove Heights, said in an
interview that he plans two lockout provisions in bills still being
written.
One would require organizations that lock out employees
to pay unemployment insurance through the lockout’s duration. The other
would restrict lockouts by organizations receiving state funds. . . .
. . . Atkins’ committee heard Durand, a Minnesota State
Community and Technical College instructor, say “the social fabric has
been weakened” in Moorhead.
She said the contract the employees
worked under would not allow them to strike during sugar beet harvest,
but allowed management to lock out workers.
Costs to communities
along the Red River and elsewhere in Minnesota, she said, include paying
unemployment insurance for locked out workers, higher taxes to cover
health care for those who lost coverage but were forced to seek
emergency room care, increased substance abuse and overcrowded homeless
shelters. . . .
Under North Dakota law, locked out workers received no unemployment benefits. State senator Phil Murphy (D-Portland) wants to change that, the Grand Forks Herald reports in Proposal may be too late to help American Crystal workers. GFH staff writer Christopher Bjorke reports:
A Portland, N.D., Democrat has introduced a bill that would extend
unemployment benefits to workers locked out of their jobs, but is not
sure if American Crystal Sugar workers would qualify.
“I just see
it as a situation that doesn’t seem quite right to me,” said Sen. Phil
Murphy on his proposal to add an exemption for anyone who “has been
locked out by that individual’s employer and prevented from working” to
the section of state law disqualifying striking workers from
unemployment benefits.
. . . Like Murphy, the other sponsors of the bill are Democrats: Sens.
Connie Triplett of Grand Forks and Tim Mathern of Fargo and Reps. Bill
Amerman of Forman, Richard Holman of Mayville and Gail Mooney of
Cummings.
Murphy, Holman and Mooney all represent District 20, the location of American Crystal’s Hillsboro factory.
Murphy
said he had not been in contact with union officials representing
American Crystal workers, and he did not want it to be considered to
have been written for unions.
“If it’s perceived that way, it could poison the well,” he said. “I would guess it would be an uphill battle.”
The
North Dakota Supreme Court is considering the eligibility of employees
of the North Dakota factories. Murphy said he decided to introduce the
bill because the court does not say when it will announce decisions. . . .
It's uncertain whether ACS workers, now locked out for 17 months, would be able to receive benefits under the proposed law.
In OSHA charges filed last week, twenty-five workers allege that they
were regularly locked indoors while cleaning Target stores in the Twin
Cities.
“At 11 at night, I would ring the doorbell to get let in, and then
from there, we would be locked in the store all night, until 7 am
when they opened the store,” said Honorio Hernandez, who cleaned Target
stores for three years before leaving a year ago for other work. “I was
scared that something would happen, and I wouldn’t be able to get out
of the store…. But I never complained about it because I was scared that
I would lose my job.” (Hernandez was interviewed in Spanish.)
Hernandez has worked for all three of the janitorial contractors
named in the OSHA complaints: Carlson Building Maintenance, Prestige
Maintenance USA and Diversified Maintenance Systems. Currently
unemployed, Hernandez is an activist with the Minnesota labor group that
organized the complaints, Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha. . . .
While the cleaning workers are legally employed by Target’s contractors,
CTUL charges that Target management has been well aware that they’re
being locked inside its stores. Hernandez told The Nation that
there was generally a single manager on site during his shift, and those
managers were employees of Target, not of the contractors. He added
that in an emergency, workers would have needed to get the manager to
unlock a door and let them out of the building, and “you can’t
necessarily find them very easily” within the store. . . .
Locked doors contributed to high death counts in notorious workplace fires at a chicken processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina, and the Triangle Shirtwaist company in New York City. More recently, fire exits were found to be a factor in a garment factory fire in Bangladesh in which 112 workers perished; the company made clothing for Walmart and other retailers.
Both lockouts and lockups illustrate the perils of management gone wild.
Image: Tild's take on ACS's lockout.
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Lockout. It’s a word we’re all too familiar with in Minnesota. First,
let’s be clear what a lockout is: It’s the opposite of a strike. The
employer withholds work in order to gain concessions from workers.
While
we see the National Hockey League player lockout coming to an end,
Minnesota still has three major lockouts on its hands. Musicians of the
Minnesota Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra have been
locked out since the fall. And one of the most egregious examples is in
the Red River Valley, where 1,300 skilled and highly trained workers who
turn beets into sugar have been locked out for nearly 17 months by
their already profitable employer — American Crystal Sugar.
Besides
the fact that these employers all are located in Minnesota, there is
another common thread. All three employers are represented by the
Minneapolis law firm of Felhaber, Larson, Fenlon and Vogt at the
bargaining table.
While those lawyers prosper, the rest of us are missing the sweet music from two orchestras, And sugar beet farmers, as well as locked-out workers--are paying for those billable hours, as Knutson continues:
Crystal Sugar’s farmer-shareholders haven’t been spared pain in this
lockout either. Shareholders have typically been paid about the same per
ton of sugar beets — or more — as shareholders in the nearby Minn-Dak
Sugar Cooperative. But this year, Crystal Sugar has estimated a beet
payment of $59 per ton, while Minn-Dak’s latest estimate is for a
payment of $74 per ton.
These lockouts continue to hurt workers, employers and communities. So, why are they continuing?
The
only ones who seem to be benefitting are the employers’ lawyers. Are
these attorneys giving their clients the best advice? Will these
lockouts leave wounds that are too deep for time to ever heal?
This isn't the first time Bluestem has seen this: management hiring a law firm with a rep for union busting. Is it in the best interest of the shareholders? Bluestem suspects there are farmers who'd love to have that $15 per ton to spend on their operations in their own communities, rather than watch management cut checks to a Twin Cities law firm and other costs of the lockout.
Photo: One big old pile of sugar beets--and American Crystal Sugar shareholders got $15 less than another area co-operative members. That's a lot less money to spend on their Main Streets.
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Mary Franson is a bit piqued about a news report today; on a website produced and paid for by her state legislative campaign committee, this message is up right now:
According to Minnesota Law I can't run a
"petition" website so by signing this you are not signing a "petition"
that would lobby the Governor to keep his hands of your family. You will
simply say I want "updates" about your bill that would stop the
Governor from forcefully unionizing moms and also unionize families. To
satisfy Minnesota Public Radio and the bureaucracy in St. Paul the sign
to the right will be removed this evening. [bold in original]
We're not surprised she was asked to clean up her committee's act.
When Bluestem first saw the website for Mary Franson's anti-union organizing legislation--symbolic language at best, given her caucus's incredibly shrunken size after November's election--we asked a labor friend well-versed in campaign finance law whether or not a legislator's campaign committee could push a petition or particular issue.
The friend didn't think that it violated state campaign finance law but suggested the effort might be a particularly lame way to spend money, especially after the close call Franson experienced in her squeaker of a relection.
A new website
set up by Rep. Mary Franson, R-Alexandria, to promote her bill to block
unionization and paid for by her campaign committee may violate state
campaign finance laws. . . .
"Under chapter 10A, it's my opinion that there's nothing that would permit that kind of use of campaign money," Goldsmith said, citing state law that outlines what campaign funds can and cannot be used for.
In response to MPR's inquiry, Franson said it was a "simple
oversight." And though she's not convinced that her site violates
campaign finance law, she's having her web developer change the
website's language.
"It's going to say something to the effect of 'If you support my legislation, sign the petition,'" she said.
Go check out the screenshots in Richert's post. The site has morphed into a sign-up for updates thingamabob, as Bluestem's own screenshot indicates.
Photo: Screenshot of the website as it stands.
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Canadian Pacific Railway is looking into the possibility of selling
660 miles of track in South Dakota and three surrounding states, the
railroad said Tuesday.
The announcement came a day after CP said
it was mothballing plans to extend its Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern
Railroad network into the Powder River Basin to ship Wyoming coal to
power plants in other states because of weakening demand for coal. . . .
CP in 2007 bought 2,500 miles of track and equipment from South
Dakota-based DM&E and its subsidiaries for $1.5 billion. CP said in a
Tuesday statement that it is “inviting expressions of interest” for
track from Tracy, Minn., into South Dakota, and into Nebraska and
Wyoming. The track is described as the “DM&E west end.”
It's no surprise to Bluestem that CP would opt to keep tracks in
Minnesota east of Tracy, since the retained line is close to potential
frac sand mines in Southeastern Minnesota and the middle corridor of the
Minnesota River Valley. A large frac sand mining and processing center near St. Charles, for example, is near the old DM&E line.
The now-abandoned proposal to extend the tracks into Wyoming's Powder River Basin was deeply controversial in the Rochester area, where the Mayo Clinic and other civic powerhouses objected to the possibility of long coal trains rumbling past the medical complex. Others objected to the large
federal loans the DM & E requested for the extension and upgrades. The conflict proved a major factor in the defeat of six-term Representative Gil Gutknecht by insurgent Mankato Democrat Tim Walz.
Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. is
slashing close to a quarter of its work force over four years, as
recently arrived CEO Hunter Harrison aggressively carves out costs to
create a more competitive railway.
Approximately 1,700 jobs will
be eliminated by year’s end through layoffs, attrition and the use of
fewer contract positions, with up to a total of 4,500 jobs by 2016 –
about 23 per cent of the current 19,500 employees and contractors.
The job cuts are the centrepiece of a sweeping restructuring plan that
aims to change CP’s reputation as one of North America’s least-efficient
railroads. U.S. hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and his company,
Pershing Square Capital Management, won a fiercely contested battle this
spring to gain control on the railway’s board and install Mr. Harrison,
a highly regarded railway manager, as its new chief executive officer. . . .
Canadian Pacific (TSX:CP) (NYSE:CP) today announced its intention to
explore strategic options for its main line track from Tracy, MN west
into South Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming and is inviting expressions of
interest from prospective partners.
The line includes approximately 660 miles of track which encompasses
CP’s current operations between Tracy, MN and Rapid City, SD, north of
Rapid City to Colony, WY, south of Rapid City to Dakota Jct., NE and
connecting branchlines. CP has operated the rail line in this area
since it assumed operational control of the Dakota, Minnesota &
Eastern (DM&E) railroad in 2008. A number of grain, ethanol, clay
and merchandise customers are rail-served in the area.
“This portion of the CP network would be an attractive and highly
viable opportunity for a low-cost operator. There is a strong long-term
franchise here for an operator willing to maintain high quality service
and explore growth opportunities with existing and future customers,”
said E. Hunter Harrison, President and Chief Executive Officer. “CP has
successfully built many partnerships with shortline and Class 1
railroads throughout its system and we look forward to assessing the
ways interested parties could work together with us to deliver quality
service to customers on the west end of the DM&E through an
innovative partnership.”
CP will be contacting interested parties seeking expressions of
interest in December, 2012. Parties should contact Paul Clegg, Director
Business Development at 403.319.6310 for further information.
“CP will continue to fully serve customers along this rail line as we
work with interested parties and evaluate proposals. We have
undertaken similar reviews on other portions on our network in the past
that have resulted in positive outcomes for shippers, employees, and
operators,’’ added Harrison.
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Images: The old depot in Tracy (now gone), top; Tracy and Lyon County, MN, middle; Tracy (gray dot) on the DM&E tracks in Minnesota, bottom.
It taps into overt fear-mongering on the right about environmentalism, while dog whistling to less polite phobias about the planning and permitting process nurtured in Tea Party meetings about Agenda 21. Paranoia about sustainable planning predates the Tea Party, of course, with folks like Michele Bachmann and Allen Quist creating exemplary Hofstadterian rants in advent of the post-2008 coming of Barack Obama, but it's gotten its realhead steam in the profound critical thinking that comes out of Teabaggery.
In the fractured fairytale told by Draz and the group home bloggers, the Citizens Forums across the state that began last week and continue through December 17--as well as next year's Environmental Congress--have only been promoted among extremist environmentalists, while the hard working yeoman farmers and small business people at the core of our democracy have been left behind like wretched sinners at the Rapture. The most laughable iteration of this fabulist fiction is the claim that Environmental Congress was planned only after the DFL legislative victories in the 2012 elections last month--rather than a year before.
According to this clarion call against DFL "overeach," citizen statements gathered at the Forums and shared at next year's Environmental Congress will simply end with former Dayton spouse and current liberal deep pockets Alida Messinger in control of all your property rights via the EQB.
Yesterday, Ag Commissioner Frederickson and Dayton advisor Ellen Anderson sent the following letter to Representative Drazkowski explaining that tens of thousands of Minnesotans had gotten emails announcing the forums and congress, and the Minnesota Farm Bureau, the Minnesota Farmers Union, the AgriGrowth Council, and local and state chambers of commerce had been sent notice while being asked to encourage their members to attend.
Frederickson andAnderson also write:
In addition, we convened two Advisory Groups, which included farmers, farm organizations, and other business and industry groups, along with a wide range of other Minnesotans, to review the draft Environment and Energy Report Card.
Photo: Steve Drazkowski, R-ALEC, complete fabulist.
Blog begathon: Bluestem is supported by reader
contributions. If you liked this post, consider throwing some coin to
the tip jar. If you don't like using PayPal, email at the address on
this page for a snail mail address. We'll be running our twice-yearly
"bleg" though Christmas.
All of the statements, opinions, and views expressed on this site by Sally Jo Sorensen are solely her own, save when she attributes them to other sources.
The opinions, statements, and views of contributing writers are their own.
Sorensen, editor and proprietor of Bluestem Prairie, served as a New Media training and strategy consultant for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party from October 2009 through mid-April 2010. She now serves clients in the business and nonprofit sectors.
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