I will be watching Thursday afternoon's Minnesota House floor session as Majority Leader Jamie Long's HF7--the 100 percent clean energy bill--comes to a vote. The bill has brought attention to a long-running effort by the state of North Dakota to protect its lignite coal industry.
I've been watching this campaign for a while. Eight years ago, Bluestem posted in Horse hockey: who's pushing the puck for new Coalition for a Secure Energy Future TV ad?:
The About page on the website for the Coalition for a Secure Energy Future (CSEF) notes that the group was "officially established" to promote that agenda:
The Coalition for a Secure Energy Future is an organization that has been officially established to get the message out to businesses, policymakers, and residents in the Upper Midwest that retaining an all-of-the-above energy mix that includes coal as a regional energy resource will help keep electric rates low, jobs plentiful, and the economy robust.
Bluestem is certain the Coalition for a Secure Energy Future could not possibly be more official an emissary for North Dakota's coal industry, given the nature of $1.2 million of its funding.
According to the June 5, 2014 Lignite Research Council Agenda of the North Dakota Industrial Commission Lignite Research, Development and Marketing Program, CSEF is funded by a grant from the commission:
Re-Submission of Regional Lignite Public Affairs Plan (Coalition for a Secure Energy Future) Submitted by: Lignite Energy Council; Request for: $600,000 annually for a total of $1,200,000; Project Duration: 2 Years.
While the discussion of the plan was closed meeting, page 35 of the minutes (pdf) of the July 1, 2014 meeting of the North Dakota Development Commission reveal:
During the closed session, it had been moved and seconded that the Industrial Commission accepts the Lignite Research Council recommendation to fund the grant application “Regional Lignite Public Affairs Plan (Coalition for a Secure Energy Future)” and to authorize Karlene Fine, Industrial Commission Executive Director, to execute an agreement with the Lignite Energy Council to provide a total of Industrial Commission Lignite Research Program funding in an amount not to exceed $1,200,000 (marketing) with annual updates presented to the Commission . On a roll call vote, Governor Dalrymple, Attorney General Stenehjem and Commissioner Goehring voted aye. The motion carried unanimously. . . .
Sadly, many media outlets still carry commentary by Coalition for a Secure Energy Future spokesters that is tagged or implies the copy is created by some sort of citizen activist group that promotes use of "all of the above" electricity-generation feedstocks that are great for everything.
Fortunately, professional clean energy and climate action advocates have followed the money as I did. But now the information is more urgent as Joe Smyth and Karlee Weinman report in-depth for the Energy Policy Institute in North Dakota has spent millions on a coal industry campaign targeting 100% clean energy legislation in Minnesota.
A North Dakota coal industry front group, the Lignite Energy Council, has jumped state lines to wage a campaign to weaken a bill in Minnesota that would require the state’s utilities to transition to 100% clean electricity by 2040.
While the Lignite Energy Council has touted its success in working with Republican state legislators in Minnesota to block clean energy legislation during previous sessions, the coal industry group now appears focused on weakening the bill by including coal carbon capture projects. Among the groups promoting carbon capture to Minnesotans is the “Coalition for a Secure Energy Future,” which is part of the Lignite Energy Council.
A review of meeting minutes of the North Dakota Industrial Commission and Lignite Research Council show that the state has provided more than $4 million to the “Coalition for a Secure Energy Future” in recent years. The Lignite Research Council requested another $1.8 million in Industrial Commission spending in 2021 for the public affairs program, but the Industrial Commission moved that year to discuss the request in secret. Lignite Energy Council tax forms show that the coal industry group has continued to receive funding for its public affairs program.
Minnesota’s 100% clean electricity proposal is not new, but it has failed to clear a Republican-controlled state Senate in past years. After the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party claimed control of the state’s House and Senate and DFL Governor Tim Walz won re-election in November, the revived bill faces decidedly better odds and is a top priority for the party. . , ,
Read the whole report at the link. Bluestem is always pleased when reading the Energy Policy Institute's follow-the-money approach, as we noted in Under the radar in MN45: Energy & Policy Institute dissects Fowke's utility industry dollars. Fortunately, the utility industry-funded Senate candidate lost to the incomparable Dr. Kelly Morrison.
For those who want to read succinct commentary that draws from the Energy and Policy Institute's report, we're happy to have a permission of CURE-MN's director Duane Ninneman to reprint a column published Wednesday at MinnPost,
Ninneman observes in Minnesota should resist pressure from North Dakota coal lobby to weaken climate legislation:
The so-called “Coalition for a Secure Energy Future” has jumped into action with the start of Minnesota’s new legislative session, publishing op-eds urging Minnesotans to consider that our carbon free energy goals would be best served by expanding our definition of carbon-free to include energy sources such as … coal.
Innovation breeds resistance, and as Minnesota’s Legislature works to set our state on a new ambitious course towards 100% clean energy our neighbors in North Dakota are doing their best to muddy the waters.
The so-called “Coalition for a Secure Energy Future” has jumped into action with the start of Minnesota’s new legislative session, publishing op-eds urging Minnesotans to consider that our carbon free energy goals would be best served by expanding our definition of carbon-free to include energy sources such as … coal.
According to their op-ed signature, the Coalition for a Secure Energy Future is “a nonprofit working to ensure affordable, reliable energy for Minnesotans.” But peeling back the layers of the Coalition’s identity reveals a deep connection to the dirtiest of all fossil fuels — coal. Despite the fact a clean energy future powered by coal doesn’t exist. On their website, the coalition reveals that they are “a project of the Lignite Energy Council,” a North Dakota-based coal industry lobbying group which has bragged in the past about their successful interventions to block previous iterations of Minnesota’s 100% clean energy plans. The coalition has also received millions of dollars of funding from the North Dakota Industrial Commission, an organization staffed by the state’s governor, attorney general, and agriculture commissioner, a group of people looking out for the best interests of North Dakota, not Minnesota.
That the coalition’s backers feel the need to cloak their lobbying efforts with a thin veneer of Minnesotan authenticity — hiring a Minnesotan PR professional to sign their op-eds and serve as their “executive director,” the only employee listed on their site — says something about how much North Dakota feels their interests are impacted by Minnesota’s decisions when it comes to energy.
Making a full switch to renewables would benefit Minnesotans in nearly every way. The benefits of technologies like wind and solar go beyond climate, offering Minnesotans cleaner air and improved health, with electricity that is not only more affordable, but more reliable in a crunch: when severe winter weather in 2021 knocked out power generation across the country causing blackouts for millions, 73% of the lost generator capacity came from coal and methane plants.
Minnesota has no fossil fuel reserves or production to speak of, meaning most of the jobs created by our energy consumption don’t stay in our state and instead benefit economies of other states such as North Dakota, a trend that a home-grown renewable energy economy could begin to reverse.
It’s clear our neighbors in North Dakota are putting up a fight to stop Minnesota from charting our own energy future. In 2020 Minnesota-based Great River Energy tried to close Coal Creek Station, a failing coal power plant that had cost the electric co-op’s member-owners an estimated $170 million the year before. Officials in McLean County, North Dakota, where the station is located, responded by threatening to have the state’s attorneys nuke all renewable energy leases in the area, effectively holding hostage a high voltage power line carrying power from Coal Creek to the Twin Cities 436 miles away. In a time when transmission of electricity is perhaps the No. 1 barrier to electrifying our economy the message to Great River Energy was clear: The line would be used for coal, or for nothing.
The Lignite Council’s strategy here is a proven one: buy friends, disguise your interests, misrepresent the facts, and do anything to buy a little more time for the dying coal industry. Fossil fuel interests have been using the same playbook for decades, starting when they buried the research of their own scientists by hiding evidence of climate change from the public. Once word got out about this deception they worked to delay the clean energy transition in any way possible — discrediting science, blocking alternatives, and asking us to believe in an alternate “clean coal” reality in which carbon capture isn’t prohibitively expensive and where fossil fuels have been our clean energy solution all along.
Renewable energy, not fossil fuels, is Minnesota’s path forward, benefiting our wallets and health as well as our climate. We welcome informed and honest debate about how the whole region can thrive going forward, but that does not include furtive meddling and veiled threats. This an uncomfortable truth for North Dakota’s outdated dirty energy economy, but Minnesota needs to do what is best for Minnesota—and this means passing the 100% Clean Energy bill (H.F. 7 / S.F. 4) now.
Duane Ninneman is Executive Director of CURE, a nonprofit organization based in Montevideo, MN that works to move people to action and build power within rural communities.
And now on the House floor debate.
Related posts
- Fact check: is the Coalition for a Secure Energy Future "hard hat labor" lobbying group? Well, no
- Is putting a smile on Tom Bakk's face the best thing ND lignite research fund has ever done?
- ND state/lignite industry partnership continues funding for Coalition for Secure Energy Future
- North Dakota's coal marketing campaign to give lignite sales pitch at MN electric co-op offices
- Horse hockey: who's pushing the puck for new Coalition for a Secure Energy Future TV ad?
Photo: A carefree family vacation to the North Dakota coal fields offered by Steele-Waseca Cooperative Electric.
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