Editorial: Governor globe-trots for good of the state

Politicians through the years have given Minnesotans ample reason for cynicism. But cynicism seems to be too dark a lens through which to view a pair of recent stories involving Gov. Tim Pawlenty. The pair:

• Pawlenty's plan to join forces with Arctic explorer Will Steger strikes us as smart use of the gubernatorial spotlight to draw public attention to a shared problem. No problem better warrants wider attention than the rapid warming of planet Earth.

Pawlenty in a parka, next to a sled dog, somewhere on the slushy Canadian tundra next spring might be a clever photo op by an ambitious politician.

But it also might spark an examination of the climate issue by skeptics -- many of them in Pawlenty's own Republican Party -- who still doubt that human activity is contributing to rapid thawing near both poles. And it might show other Republicans that there's political hay to be made by embracing antiwarming strategies, rather than resisting and ridiculing the issue as a fixation of the loony left.

Pawlenty's interest in this issue clearly goes beyond symbolism. Clean energy is his chosen theme as this year's head of the National Governors Association. He signed legislation last spring putting in place the nation's most aggressive goals for electricity generation using renewable resouces. A task force he appointed is preparing additional policy proposals for the 2008 Legislature.

Still, the governor's policy assault on rising temperatures makes one obvious omission. He has done too little to allow Minnesotans to get out of their cars and into energy-saving mass transit. Pawlenty should know that as long as he continues to resist the Legislature's efforts to step up transit funding, he'll be seen -- and not just by cynics -- as less than sincere about global warming.

• Pawlenty's beaming photos last week with Madhu Vuppuluri of Essar Global, the Indian firm that intends to build a $1.6 billion steel plant in Nashwauk, irritated some Iron Range politicians, who consider him Timmy-Come-Lately on a project they've been working on for a decade.

They were even more annoyed when he stepped off the airplane last Saturday and said he would change his tune and oppose the deal if Essar's negotiations to build an oil refinery in Iran make it subject to U.S. sanctions.

To us, that looked like legitimate gubernatorial caution -- even if it also happened to look good to the get-tough-on-Iran crowd in his party. Governors ought not be freelancers on international trade policy.

But governors can be helpful deal-facilitators -- and that appears to be the role Pawlenty played this week. He personally encouraged Essar to drop its Iranian flirtation in favor of a permanent relationship in Nashwauk. Pawlenty's role in removing that potential obstacle to the creation of 700 steel mill jobs is a feather in his cap of substance, not show.

The governor can underscore his support for the proposal by getting firmly behind Itasca County's request for state help in financing the infrastructure improvements a big new steel plant requires. Do that, and even the most hardened cynics will have a hard time claiming that Pawlenty's only interest in the northern Minnesota development was a trade mission photo op.