If the federal government fails to extend federal subsidies that offset healthcare premiums, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, as governor, would create a state tax credit to help with those skyrocketing costs.
Most Republican U.S. senators late last year blocked a Democratic bill to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits, essentially driving up healthcare premiums for millions of Americans.
The extra federal subsidies that Republicans blocked are known as “enhanced premium tax credits,” because they raised the income cutoffs at which people can receive subsidies.
They never called her the "Big Vision Lady." A brief Obama-era trifecta, executive, senate, house, and we got Romneycare-rebranded. Romneycare was a Heritage Society idea.
Or as Nancy Reagan, (different context), said, "Just say no."
On balance, MinnReformer editorial-think is sulfide mining proposals are bad policy ideas.
Or as Crabgrass summarizes, the safest most risk averse outlook, is leave the ore where nature placed it.
So why not do that? I await Harry Niska and Tom Emmer to show what could be wrong with that. If they have any real ideas at all. Besides vouchers for their kids' school (Harry and Jen there, not Emmer).
Strib has a paywall but an individual posted two places, here and here, and the substack item is sourced by Crabgrass. Both items appear to be openly public access.
Just Ask Yourself.....
Former Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson sent this letter to the Minnesota Star-Tribune earlier this morning over its coverage of Governor Tim Walz's executive order on the Boundary Waters Wilderness.
Thank you for a well written and detailed article on the Walz directive to temporarily protect the BWCA. As you know, this controversy has been a continuing story since October, 2013 when State Auditor, Rebecca Otto, forcefully opposed opening the state to copper-nickel mining and was the lone vote in the state’s Executive Council against it. From that point on , she was pilloried and the office stripped of many of its powers. And those acts of retribution were led by her own party.
In July of 2016, former Vice President Walter Mondale wrote a commentary in MinnPost warning that the BWCA could not be saved unless we were willing to protect the entire Lake Superior watershed. In another commentary published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune , he wrote that “ sulfide ore mining has never-never been undertaken without serious environmental consequences. “
Additionally, the Minnesota medical community , including members from the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota, have been publicly petitioning the state for well over a decade to include a Health Impact Assessment ( HIA ) study as a requirement for a mining permit. However, the Dayton and Walz administrations chose to do nothing, absolutely nothing except make false promises. Just read Walker Orenstein’s article on this in MinnPost (August, 2019 ).
This policy of stonewalling the public was, in fact, the policy of our state government and fully embraced by both parties and all too accepted by the media. Consider this: the Governor and Legislature have refused for well over a decade to hold a single public hearing on ANY legislation that would update our antiquated mining laws in order to protect our state’s drinking water.
And , for the past eight years, my colleagues and I have been writing commentaries published in a variety of newspapers around the state with a simple message - large campaign donors are driving our policy decisions. Interestingly, not a single elected official has publicly protested our declarations.
Just ask yourself:
“ Why is the State of Minnesota processing a mining permit for one of the world’s most corrupt companies, Glencore? “
This is not a trivial or minor concern. Rather, take notice that the discharges from Glencore’s proposed New Range Copper Nickel Mine will flow south of the Laurentian Divide into Lake Superior and the Great Lakes thereby contaminating the drinking water of some 30 to 40 million people with arsenic and mercury. This will be cataclysmic.
Wikipedia has some 27 paragraphs on Glencore’s illegalities and yet there has not been a single legislative or executive public hearing on this. Not one. How is it that an international mining conglomerate that pled guilty to bribery of public officials and market manipulation in a United States Federal District Court and agreed to a fine of $1.1 billion can be so welcome in Minnesota?
What is even more perplexing is that candidates for our state’s leadership positions can plead for more time to think about this. What precisely do they need to think about?
No, the future of our drinking water must be a very public issue and fully aired throughout our state. Certainly, all sides should be able to at least agree on requiring an independent Health Impact Assessment on all endeavors that threaten our dwindling supply of healthy drinking water.
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Crabgrass opines: There is no threat of copper or nickel shortages now or in the future if the proposed sulfide mining in Minnesota is permantly barred. Chile has the world's largest reserves, and has massive operating mining ventures within its borders.
So, why Minnesota? Nobocy has offered any good statement of why here, other than ore was found and somebody wants profit. It is that simple. If water considerations exist, Carlson suggests that's enough to put the kibosh to any plan but leaving the undisturbed ore where nature placed it.
If that does not make sense to you, sorry, but at Crabgrass it's all the sense that's needed.
In closing, what this letter shows most is Carlson's ongoing concern that we could do wrong.
He is correct in that worry. His earlier correspondence from after leaving office, below, shows the ongoing nature of Carlson's concern. As in: Why risk it?
UPDATE: What is lost in all this one expert says X, another says Y, a third weighs X and Y; is that risk aversion is subjective, not objective, and in an instance of long term risk into an uncertain future, strict risk aversion makes sense. If you don't know, and it's guessing at probabilities and event severity, the safest thing is - other places might involve less risk, and the current opinionating has had no comparative location-objective discussion whatsoever. A better phrasing of the question is not here, yes or no, but here vs somewhere else, with worldwide reserves in mind, and thorough exploration being helpful.
Bottom line: It does not have to be, there are risks that are guesswork, so bag it and mine sulfide ores elsewhere while continuing to mine as safely as feasible Minnesota's vast remaining taconite, which mining supports the Iron Range now, and onward.
Why gamble it, just so multinational giant mining firms can extract a local profit? Fuck 'em.
For over four years, the Walz administration has refused to answer very basic questions that deal directly with the public’s access to healthy drinking water.
Those questions become increasingly important with the recent announcement of Teck Resources Ltd partnering with PolyMet — owned by international mining conglomerate Glencore. They are seeking to enlarge their mining operations, which are in close proximity to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Lake Superior.
The people of Duluth and the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation draw their water from Lake Superior and the adjacent area. Overall, 35 million people depend on the Great Lakes for their drinking water, and harm to one lake affects them all.
Any government — regardless of party control — owes its full allegiance to the people and not to any special interests.
With that in mind, the question again arises:
Why is the state of Minnesota doing business with an international corrupt company such as Glencore, and why is it being permitted to partner with a Canadian mining company in Teck Resources — 10% owned by the China Investment Corporation and possessing a lengthy record of environmental destruction?
Now we have one mining conglomerate in Glencore with a lengthy list of environmental degradation and international corruption — fined $1.5 billion by the Justice Department last May for price fixing and bribery of public officials — joining forces with another foreign mining operation with a similar history of illegal exploitation of natural resources, including its role in polluting the celebrated Columbia River. To this point, officials of Teck Resources admitted in a federal court that they had polluted the Columbia River in Washington state for more than a century.
And these two partners are now to be trusted with this state’s most valuable water resources, including Lake Superior, which holds 10% of the world’s fresh surface water?
Where are the state’s standards? Where is the vetting? Where is common sense?
Our supply of drinking water is diminishing while our demand is increasing, and the state’s leadership is silent.
On top of this, the Minnesota health community — including the Mayo Clinic — requested of the governor that a health study be done of the waters that would be affected by the discharge of waste from the PolyMet mine. This effluent includes mercury and arsenic. This too has been completely ignored.
[...] Specifically, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is “committed to insuring that every Minnesotan has healthy air, sustainable lands, clean water, and a better climate” (emphasis mine).
The Department of Natural Resources states that its mission is “to work with Minnesotans to conserve and manage the state’s natural resources.” This includes our drinking water.
Partnering with Glencore and Teck Resources violates department pledges and severely compromises the integrity of public service.
I implore you to protect the well being of the people you serve.
And, now, two governors, each party, agree. In the twilight of his two terms of service, Walz is doing exactly as Carlson advocated, in issuing his executive order for the 90 day protective order, until sane and sagacious steps can be taken without anybody pounding on the table saying, "Now, now, you have to give what I want, now. Start the clock running, the process moving, now."
It is best to move with deliberate caution. Time has already passed with no dire straits arising. Mistakes in haste are easy to make. Good management of resources is less easy.
The quoted part is the footer from an op-ed he submitted to Strib. The "Moreover . . ." part is Crabgrass opinion. He writes a hit piece on the Walz move to protect the Rainy River Watershed and Boundary Waters from rapacious foreign-owned toxic sulfide mining. He's got his long-running union job, in taconite which carries the Iron Range without sulfide mining's super-pollution threats, but he whines anyway. It is tiring. Save the BWCA for the future of the entire state and nation. And let the whiners whine. Bless them.
How he got elected in the first place astounds. The Iron Rangers collectively seem to feel themselves more entitled than the remainder of the State. and will put toxic mining jobs ahead of outfitter jobs, where the outfitters are the long term future of northern Minnesota. Tunnel vision. is a problem with the Rangers. Likely why they these days are more Republican than Democrat.
This guy seems to like Trump. While the economy sucks and the Iranians are winning, this guy:
