Slow down to slow climate change?

A state panel is recommending some lower speed limits and cleaner cars as part of a package of proposed new rules, but some critics say that doesn't go far enough.

By BILL McAULIFFE, Star Tribune

Last update: January 25, 2008 - 2:07 PM

Tougher emissions standards for new cars, a return of nuclear energy and even lower speed limits could be part of Minnesota's future under a package of recommendations endorsed Thursday by a state climate change panel.

After nine months of analysis, the Minnesota Climate Change Advisory Group approved policies, incentives and studies of long-range options that could reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2025. An official from the Center for Climate Strategies, the research and consulting firm working with the panel, indicated recently that the panel's recommendations could save Minnesota families, businesses and government $9 billion by 2025.

That would put Minnesota well down the road toward the goal of an 80 percent reduction by 2050, which was established by Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Legislature last year.

The group's work will go to Pawlenty next week, and he will forward possible bills to the Legislature.

However, the group's recommendations will not include stringent emissions standards for two proposed coal-burning power plants.

That move prompted one key legislator to say the findings simply "rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic."

"They're not doing the job we asked them to do," said Sen. Ellen Anderson, DFL-St. Paul. "There's a big, big hole in their recommendations."

The panel of more than 50 citizens from utilities, industry, environmental and other groups first voted in favor of stringent standards for new coal-burning plants. Then, led by a majority of panelists from utilities and other business interests, it exempted the proposed Mesaba coal-gasification project in northern Minnesota and the proposed Big Stone II plant in eastern South Dakota from those standards.

Chuck Dayton, a retired environmental attorney and member of the panel, said that vote will "lead the public to believe that we're doing something when we're not."

But he noted that the exemption vote was close enough (23-18) to show that "... there's a lot of opposition among the public to building coal plants."

In any case, neither of the proposed plants is a sure thing, due in part to questions about power demands as well as new environmental regulations and possible new technologies. An administrative law judge panel has recommended that state regulators halt the Mesaba plant. The Big Stone II plant, while in the permitting process, has lost two of its partner utilities.

Nine hours of discussion

Chuck MacFarlane, president of Otter Tail Power, one of the Big Stone partners, said the plant would be "one of the most efficient plants in the United States in terms of carbon dioxide emissions." But it would emit 68 percent more carbon dioxide than the standard that the climate change panel might have imposed.

State law passed last year already calls for utilities to produce 25 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025, and Pawlenty has urged coal-burners to use carbon "offsets" to negate their carbon dioxide emissions.

In an e-mail Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung wrote that the governor expects the recommendations to lead to a "cleaner and more secure energy future." Because Mesaba and Big Stone were already in the pipeline, the panel's vote "is consistent with last year's Next Generation Energy legislation that passed with overwhelming, bipartisan support from the Legislature."

In nearly nine hours of discussion Thursday, the panel recommended adoption of emissions standards for new cars that the federal Environmental Protection Agency has barred from being enacted in California. They are now the subject of litigation involving 17 states, including Minnesota.

That and a measure to reduce some rural speed limits drew almost as many objections as the coal plant emissions standard that was halted. But the other rules were approved as having a majority of support.

Edward Garvey, director of Minnesota's Office of Energy Security, who has co-ordinated the panel's work, said he expects to present to Pawlenty next week a package of ranked recommendations based on "how we, as the administration, think we can implement and achieve goals."

The recommendations will not be "filtered or edited," he said, but they might include concerns for impact on low-income and minority populations. That issue was raised several times Thursday by a group called Environmental Justice Advocates, which presented the panel with "principles for climate justice."

Bill McAuliffe • 612-673-7646

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