Sen. Steve Murphy: Nothing beats the real thing

By Mike Kaszuba

For most of his years as a state senator from Red Wing, there have been often been two versions of Steve Murphy -- the legislative diplomat and the brash-talking DFLer who bluntly speaks his mind in the hallways.

Just days after Murphy announced he would not seek re-election, both versions were on display Monday.

Here, for example, were two quotes from Murphy on a legislative proposal regarding nuclear waste -- one made in a more conciliatory letter and the other in comments to reporters after a hearing:

The letter: "I firmly believe that the underlying crux of your bill, our need to prepare our state for further delay, needs to be developed and implemented."

Comments to reporters: "This is a bill in search of a problem."

The backdrop was a House hearing Monday on a proposal to address the storage of radioactive waste at Minnesota's two nuclear power plants, located in Monticello and Red Wing. The proposal, which is strongly supported by the city of Red Wing, would divert a federal nuclear waste fee that Minnesotans have long been paying to the federal government back to local communities to in part cover expenses associated with hosting the plants.

Murphy went on however to write that parts of the proposal "could have epic unintended consequences", and that having Minnesota withhold the federal nuclear waste fee could lead the federal government to take Minnesota to court.

But he ended with: "It is my hope that the discussions around your proposal lead to a plan of cooperative action."

In huddling with reporters after the hearing, Murphy quickly came to the point:

"This is about [Red Wing] Mayor John Howe wanting to extort $9 million from Xcel [Energy, the operators of the nuclear plants]. He sat in my office over a year ago and said that he was not going to stop until he got $9 million out of the company" to help the city with expenses associated with having the plant, Murphy said.