We've made the trip to The Cities from western Big Stone County a few times this year, and so appreciate the distance between here and there more vividly than usual. Thus, we can also appreciate a passage in Frank Jossi's Critics say Minnesota omnibus bill sets back clean energy in Midwest Energy News:
Clean Up The Minnesota River (CURE) Executive Director Duane Ninneman said “there wasn’t anything I could consider a positive agenda item” in the bill. He sees a great deal of “disrespect” by legislators for citizen input, pointing to a meeting before the Senate’s Finance Commission as an example.
The meeting offered the public a chance to comment on a measure to remove state regulatory oversight from rural electric cooperative fees. CURE and its allies gathered 18 people to testify against the measure, among them several farmers. They were given just 15 minutes after a 45-minute presentation on “clean coal,” said Ninneman.
“We had between six and eight farmers with renewable installations on their farms, and co-op members,” he said. “They said we really don’t need all these farmers to testify, so they allowed one to testify. The rest of them wasted all that preparation time and travel from outstate.”
Given the praise lawmakers heap on abstract farmers, one would think they'd treat real farmers in the flesh a bit better.
Photo: A meme from CURE. A member and her solar panels.
Disclosure: Bluestem's editor is a member of CURE, one of the best rural grassroots organizations in the country.
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