The Star Tribune Editorial Board revealed an unrealistic view toward oil resources with "For safety's sake, let Enbridge build" (March 10), a view that has been common in the present political climate. The fact is, suggesting the creation of new fossil-fuel infrastructure that will help put us on track toward making food shortages, floods, heat waves and polar vortices the norm can be called many things, but an argument for safety is not one of them. What we need now from both the governor and news organizations like the Star Tribune is an openness to realism about our future and a strong political imagination. While the Editorial Board is correct that stopping the new line on its own won't eliminate Minnesota's role in moving fossil fuels, we can stop the new Line 3, remove the old line and also end rail shipments of petroleum through this state all while creating new (green) energy jobs if we have the will to do so. What we can't do is continue to pretend that constructing Line 3 has anything to do with safety or realism.
Rami Jubara, Minneapolis
• • •
For the Editorial Board to acknowledge the need to wean society from fossil fuels in "Time to move ahead with clean energy" (March 6) was commendable. Its call four days later to complete the new Line 3 pipeline was contradictory. How does the board support a project with the environmentally destructive equivalent of 50 coal-fired power plants while backing a carbon-free plan? It raises the question: On what date should we start the weaning process? If you don't subscribe to the selective science mind-set, the climate science community has laid out a painfully short timeline response: Be carbon-neutral by 2050 or suffer. Suffer a lot. Yet the Editorial Board bases its Line 3 support on a safety issue. Interesting.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) did the same thing. The Enbridge legal team testified during the Line 3 hearings that if the new pipeline was not permitted, Enbridge would continue to operate the existing pipeline and repair leaks as they are discovered. PUC Member Dan Lipschultz commented during the "certificate of need" vote that the threat the old Line 3 poses was like having a gun to commissioners' heads. That is to say, the PUC played into the false dichotomy of either giving Enbridge what it wanted or accepting the certainty of existing Line 3 failures. Yet, as noted by the Department of Commerce, the disposition of the existing pipeline is independent of the PUC's new Line 3 decision. That responsibility rests with the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
The permitting evaluation process serves to determine if a project, such as proposed pipeline, provides a net benefit to all Minnesotans. The process is not over, and Minnesota should not be cowed into bad decisions.
Jerry Striegel, St. Paul
• • •
The Editorial Board states that "Minnesota's problem in separating itself from fossil fuels is far larger than Line 3, and will take decades to accomplish." According to the most recent IPCC report we simply don't have decades to wean ourselves off fossil fuels to avert the worst effects of climate change. The editorial only considered three options: either we replace Line 3, allow the dangerous existing Line 3 to continue to operate, or ship oil by rail. But the fourth and best option was not seriously considered: shut down the existing pipeline, don't build a new one, and don't allow rail shipment of carbon intensive tar sands oil across our state. The Line 3 project will have more than double the capacity of the existing Line 3, and the shipped oil will have a total CO2 equivalent of 50 coal fired power plants, not to mention the disastrous effects of a potential oil spill in some of the most pristine wilderness in our entire country. How can this not be a large problem? How is the Editorial Board's position consistent with its claimed commitment to "environmental quality and clean energy goals?" They state the PUC's process was "rigorous and exhaustive". What about the rigorous and exhaustive process by the scientists and experts of the Commerce Department, who concluded that this project is not in the best interest of Minnesota?
James Doyle, St. Paul
STATE BUDGET
What really happened when spending didn't factor in inflation
Peter Hutchinson, finance commissioner under Gov. Rudy Perpich, takes the Star Tribune Editorial Board to task for advocating that inflation be factored in the state's economic forecast ("Why inflation doesn't belong in spending forecasts," March 10). He proudly boasts of being the architect of its removal.
However, he fails to mention the calamitous results which our administration inherited in January 1991. The deficit reached $2.3 billion, the bond rating downgraded and the reserve funds depleted.
The process of returning to financial health was painful to everyone because it involved spending cuts and tax increases. John Gunyou, our new finance commissioner, and his assistant, Laura King, led the administration in building bipartisan coalitions that supported long-term financial planning with inflation included, more disciplined spending and job-growth reforms.
