They say a happy environmentalist can be as hard to find as a snail darter or the Minnesota Dwarf Trout Lily. But environmentalists have been sporting smiles since Gov. Tim Pawlenty's energy program speech last month.
Minnesotans should be happy, too. The governor's plan potentially could take Minnesota back where it once was, as a national leader on energy issues.
The payoff would be more jobs, less pollution, and an energy supply that is less dependent on the mood swings of countries in the Middle East.
"It's a win for national security," Pawlenty said in his speech to the Midwest Ag Energy Network Summit. "It's a win for energy policy. It is a win for rural economic development policy. It's a win for environmental policy."
Pawlenty put forward energy proposals that are very similar to those championed by Clean Energy Minnesota, a coalition of environmental and energy groups. Clean Energy Minnesota wants to see the state:
• Maximize the savings from utility conservation programs by investing in efficiency that costs less than building new power plants;
• Change electric utility regulations to provide more energy efficiency incentives;
• Acquire 25 percent new renewable energy resources by 2020;
• Support policies, funding and research for the next generation of clean fuels using Minnesota crops;
• Set ambitious goals to reduce Minnesota's global warming pollution;
• Cap global warming carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, providing utilities with an incentive to reduce that pollutant.
Pawlenty's speech contained even more specifics, calling for 4,000 to 5,000 megawatts of wind energy by 2025. That's about five times more wind power than we produce today and would start moving wind electricity into the big leagues with coal and nuclear plants.
The governor wants the state to be among the first to distill ethanol from cellulosic material, species like switchgrass and prairie grasses and other plants that aren't food sources and don't damage the soils and waters.
Minnesota should establish an energy savings goal to reduce fossil fuel use in Minnesota, for heating and electricity, by 15 percent by 2015, Pawlenty said.
We know these are good ideas, because they build upon the state's previous success. Responding to an earlier energy crisis, leadership in the Minnesota Legislature and the governor's office passed legislation in 1980 that required electric and natural gas companies to spend money on energy efficiency. The result was businesses and homes replaced old, energy hog furnaces, washers, dryers, motors and light bulbs with new, improved, energy-efficient ones that they couldn't afford without the rebates from the energy companies. Plans for expensive new power plants were shelved.
Minnesota leaders decided an ethanol industry would be good for the state. In 1987, they passed the ethanol producer payments law and by 1991, they mandated that all gasoline sold in the Twin Cities metro area had to contain at least 10 percent ethanol. Production boomed from less than one million gallons of ethanol in 1987 to 550 million gallons by the end of 2006.
Finally, it was the state government that pushed the studies proving Minnesota had enormous wind power. Electric utilities balked at wind, but in 1994 the Legislature required Northern States Power Co. use 425 megawatts of wind power by the end of 2002 and state regulators later required the renamed Xcel Energy use another 400 megawatts by 2012. The result: wind is now a cheap, solid alternative.
"It can be done, but we need a Can-Do attitude," Pawlenty told his audience.
Amen. Now it's up to all of us to make sure our legislators pass the necessary energy bills, that the laws set standards with teeth in them, and that Pawlenty signs them.
Then we can all smile.
Nancy Lange is Clean Air Program coordinator with the Izaak Walton League of America-Midwest office and co-chair of Clean Energy Minnesota. Chuck Dayton is a retired lawyer and long-time environmentalist.