Back in our February post, Hagedorn: Senator Gary Dahms stands between you and socialist legal recreational marijuana, we wrote:
In Sunday's New Ulm Journal, Fritz Busch reports in Hagedorn, Torkelson address county Republicans:
. . .Hagedorn said. “You have great leaders here in Southern Minnesota with Rep. Paul Torkelson and Sen. Gary Dahms. Paul worked hard on Highway 14 and everything else. Gary stands between you and a more socialist Minnesota. Gov. Tim Walz wants a gas tax, legal recreational marijuana, single-payer healthcare and 50 percent renewable energy, which isn’t feasible because we don’t have the technology.”
Bluestem is a bit baffled by the "socialist" ingredients in Hagedorn's dread stew. After all, cannabis prohibition is used by the defenders of free markets as the poster child of the terrors of what centralized government control can do to free people and the products they might wish to purchase. .. .
As for Hagedorn's assertion that "50 percent renewable energy, which isn’t feasible because we don’t have the technology"? Perhaps he should contact Great River Energy with this insight. In 50% by 2030 renewable energy - Great River Energy, we learn that the dirty hippies at the Maple Grove-based electric transmission and generation cooperative decided to shoot for that goal even before Walz was elected governor of Minnesota:
In May 2018, Great River Energy adopted a corporate goal to achieve 50 percent renewable energy for its 20 all-requirements member-owner cooperatives by 2030.
Renewable energy has been a growing segment of Great River Energy’s power supply portfolio over the last two decades. In fact, the cooperative accomplished Minnesota’s 25 percent renewable energy standard in 2017 – eight years ahead of the requirement.
Hagedorn campaigned in 2018 on denying the human role in climate change and embracing all forms of energy, according to Minnesota Public Radio. In 2014, he wrote in a column published in the Mankato Times:
I am an unapologetic proponent of bold national policies to foster private sector development of all available U.S. energy resources, including exploring for fossil fuels on public lands and developing technologies to more efficiently utilize renewable energy platforms. I also support initiatives to build the infrastructure needed to efficiently transport, refine/process, and utilize U.S. energy resources. Importantly, these policies will lead to an energy-independent America. . . .
. . .President Obama and devoted followers like liberal Democratic Congressman Tim Walz continue to place the whims of environmental extremists ahead of energy exploration, economic growth and lower prices for staple goods. Obama & Walz represent the narrow mindset that is limiting our country’s energy potential, mostly due to religious-like devotion to the politics of global warming.
Since being elected, Hagedorn has posted the following sentence about energy policy on his issues page, along with the image on the top of this post:
For more information concerning work and views related to Energy, please contact our office.
On Tuesday, investor-owned Xcel Energy tweeted:
We have an ambitious vision to serve customers with 100% #carbonfree electricity by 2050, and we did a deep dive into the #climate science behind it - find the results in our new carbon report. https://t.co/5Nd58YwS3Y pic.twitter.com/6kZrtmcrRb
— Xcel Energy (@xcelenergy) March 5, 2019
Readers can learn more by reading the carbon report noted in the tweet. At the Energy News Network, Allen Best scrutinizes the proposal in Xcel Energy has an aggressive clean energy goal. How will it get there?. The subhead suggests that Hagedorn's wrong on the percentage of renewable energy that can be achieved right away (bold and italics in origin copy):
The utility says its interim goal of 80 percent carbon reduction by 2030 can be met with existing technology.
Eighty percent is lot more than fifty percent.
Monday, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announced Walz, Flanagan Propose Plan to Achieve 100 Percent Clean Energy in Minnesota by 2050. In MinnPost, Walker Orenstein asks How feasible is Walz’s goal of making Minnesota’s energy sector carbon free by 2050?. A good read.
After reading up on renewable energy and existing technology, Bluestem has come to believe Hagedorn's notions about the topic belong in Hagedorn's storehouse of ridiculous opinions that Bluestem first covered in our 2009 post Rightwing values and performance art in MN-01: Mr. Quist and "Mr. Conservative." That material gained new life in 2014 with the publication of Tim Murphy's House Candidate Called Female Senators “Undeserving Bimbos in Tennis Shoes” in Mother Jones. Last fall Bluestem examined NRCC ads on Hagedorn's behalf in Hagedorn campaign embraces NRCC's anti-semitic anti-Soros ad condemned by Jewish Community Relations Council and Hagedorn campaign changes tune on control of NRCC anti-Semitic ad, but still a-ok with content.
Bonus: We just can't wait for the first DCCC email with "ICYMI" about this topic in the Hagedorn clown cornucopia. As if the purpose of this blog was to amplify national progressive articles that poach our legwork.
Screengrab: Hagedorn's Energy page on his official website's Issues menu. That most be one of the many offshore oil derricks that dot the lakes of Southern Minnesota. One might think his staff could throw up a photo of an ethanol plant, solar array or wind farm, for pete's sake.
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