Injecting vagueness and political gridlock into MN climate goals

The MN House Energy Omnibus Bill passed on Earth Day and will force climate-conscious legislators to play defense as it goes into conference committee with the companion senate bill detracting energy from pro-active efforts at solving the crisis.

The MN House Energy Omnibus bill replaces all quantitative language on Minnesota’s clear, science-based, 30 percent by 2025 and 80 percent by 2050 greenhouse gas reduction goals with the impulsive and vague phrase “in an affordable manner”. This creates confusion on what metrics we are trying to achieve as a state. The term “affordable manner” is a respectable principle but not when it is interpreted by people who are opportunist with a restrictive, tunnel-vision view of economics. People who seek to use a shortsighted definition of “affordable” will take advantage of this revision to justify further delay in coordinated action to mitigate climate disruption. And further delay will only serve to raise the eventual costs to the United States (and global) economy because paying the costs of climate disasters after the fact is anything but an “affordable manner.” 

A related part of the House Omnibus Energy bill injects political gridlock by requiring state legislative approval of Minnesota’s version of the Clean Power Plan in order for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to implement it. Minnesota’s contribution for our one moonshot chance for mitigating a coming climate disaster will be held at the tender mercy of 71 members of the Republican majority in the Minnesota House who voted against a Melissa Hortman’s amendment stating that climate change is real and that human activity is a significant contributor to it.

During the April 22^nd session, the bill author Pat Garofalo commented that it is dangerous to have only one person (Governor Mark Dayton) setting energy policy unilaterally. More specifically, he stated fear Dayton will have the ability to impose a regional cap and trade plan. To his credit Pat Garofalo was one Republican who actually voted yes affirming anthropogenic climate change to be real and initially suggested his colleagues do so as well during the session. During a Star Tribune interview on January 11^th, Garofalo answered “So Yes” to a question on whether carbon dioxide emissions cause climate change. 

So how could Garofalo reconcile diluting the state’s resolve to address an issue that he admits is a problem?  

In that same Star Tribune interview Garofalo state he has “high hopes for technology and innovation, such as capturing carbon dioxide from smokestacks, to address climate change.” Is carbon capture and storage more feasible and attainable than say a nuclear fusion power plant or is that a justification to keep coal plants chugging along?)

Here are some highlights of the lengthy discussion on Melissa Hortman’s “admit climate is real” amendment.

First Melissa Hortman attributed the recent drought and flood historical weather extremes to climate change which has had a $400 million price tag for the State.

Paul Thissen asked a couple of GOP State Reps direct questions on whether they will admit humans are responsible for climate change and if they do why they would vote to weaken Minnesota’s climate goals. Both found ways to dodge the question and the most meaningful answer was one from Gruenhagen that “I believe there are eminently qualified scientists who would disagree with that comment and I tend to agree with those scientists.” In his statement answering basically the same question Rep. Jim Newberger, referred to these 2% or 3% of "scientists" who refute the consensus on climate change, saying: “I’m going to trust they are a lot smarter than I. These are men and women who accomplished many things.”

Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen, clearly uncomfortable with the discussing the topic, remarked that climate should be “debate for another time.”

Rep. Joyce Peppin then retorted by asking a number of DFL legislators whether they were qualified scientists implying that their standing to have opinions on global warming was suspect. That would be like saying “You have no standing to be for preventing higher minimum wage unless you have a PHD in economics.” The DFL legislators had an opportunity here to make a powerful morality based argument and could have said it is much more likely that the 3% of scientists are paid off by the big carbon (as shown by the movie Merchants of Doubt) than it is for the 97% of scientists to be involved in some grand conspiracy. The clearest message I heard repeated from the DFL legislators was that 97% of scientists do in fact adhere to the consensus. 

Peppin then asked a question whether any legislator present was in fact a qualified scientist.

 Barb Yarusso, one Representative who did have a scientific background a Ph. D. in chemical engineering, went on a lengthy, patient and well-laid out lecture on the basics of climate disruption. So on one hand the Republicans demanded rigorous criteria of scientific facts and analysis. But then I observed with my own eyes the legislators moving about and talking, clearly not paying attention to what she had to say. I got the impression that Representatives on both sides of the isle already had their minds made up on the issue, displaying no interest in learning more about the issue that so many demanded more qualified facts about.

Representative Lucero asked a series of questions about how the Ice Age could have possibly ended if human activity was not responsible for it. Again, this was a missed opportunity at a real knock-out punch argument. Someone could have simply stated that warming today is much more abrupt, and the CO2 levels far higher than at the warming that ended the ice age. Even according to that much more gradual natural cycle (which Lucero implied debunked anthropogenic global warming) we technically should be cooling now. Just because the our earth’s climate has had longer and more gradual warming and cooling epochs in the distant past does not rule out CO2 emissions as the cause of the current warming.

Representative Newberger, hot off the heels of making a controversial comment the previous day, warned that voting no would make oneself subject to being insulted as a denier. He then said “I am not here to insult anyone for their beliefs on this issue so please don’t insult mine.”

He was among the 71 who voted no.

 Bill Summary: http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/bs/89/HF0843.pdf

Conspiracy to upend Net Metering comes to MN House Energy Omnibus Bill

The National Conspiracy against net metering, as uncovered by the Washington post in their March 7th article "Utilities Wage Campaign against Rooftop Solar", has become a key point of controversy in the Minnesota State House of Representatives Energy Omnibus Bill.

For Solar Homeowners, net metering is the ability to sell surplus solar power back to the utility through the grid possibly resulting in a check from the utility companies rather than a bill. 

     The usual divide and conquer technique fossil fuel industry and utility company trade groups like the Edison Electric Institute use is to try to pit low-income communities of color against advocates for certain solar power options like net metering. They invoke an inverted reality where the individual solar energy customer is the greedy villain.

They say households that net-meter their own solar-based electricity do not pay into the fixed costs of the grid and thereby  unfairly and inaccurately accuse  them of forcing a raise in electricity costs for non-solar households, and chiefly those struggling to pay their energy bills. The author of the MN State House Energy Omnibus Bill, Pat Garofalo, told the Star Tribune about net metering “we are defunding maintenance of the electric grid to pay for (distributed generation) incentives.” In the April 22^nd session on the energy omnibus bill, Pat Garofalo clearly stated that someone who uses the grid should pay for it rather than there being any freeloaders.

If a solar homeowner or a subscriber is not being reimbursed for excess power they generate, then how is that not theft plain and simple as seen in bill’s language like “Any Kilowatt Hour Credits carried forward by the customer cancel at the end of the calendar year with no additional compensation?” 
It is like imposing a punitive fee on Pat Garofalo for buying a new $70,000 a jet black Tesla Model S for not contributing to the gas tax revenue that goes to pay for the road and bridge infrastructure.

What information could opponents of net metering feast upon? There was a Louisiana Study that concluded solar roofs result a cost shift of $2 Million for energy users who do not own solar panels, but is has been debunked as paid off by the fossil fuel interests. Meanwhile recent reports commissioned by regulators in Mississippi, Nevada, and Maine, as well as the state consumer advocate in Vermont, have confirmed whatever costs distributed solar causes are outweighed by the benefits such as reducing the load on the utility during the hot sunny summer months when air conditioners are running on high.

When the House Energy Omnibus bill was being heard, Representative Melissa Hortman brought up an amendment that she said would actually bring in some analysis, transparency and accounting onto the supposed cost shifting and instability net metering imposes. But the State House still voted it down and the retort from the other side was to “check in with the ratepayers and the electric co-ops.”

The net metering language in the bill was described by its supporters as that the fees for what people would be charged for net metering would be made by the co-op utilities and Muni’s themselves rather than being set from a top down-imposed fixed rate. They framed net metering issue as forcing Muni utilities and co-ops to buy the distributed generation even if they don’t want it for whatever reason. I heard a representative say that the gives the co-ops and the munis the ability to set a rate that “encourages renewables” but does not put it on the backs of those who do not want it. So overall they and take a weakening net metering as an exhibit for being pro-local control.

  Supporters of protecting the current net metering standards spoke toward the principle of becoming energy independent by diversifying our energy supply. Representative Melissa Hortman explained how net metering has been around since the 1980’s and was created in response to natural gas spikes in the 1970’s that closed schools because there was not enough energy to keep them warm. For whatever great burden distributed generation plus net metering supposedly imposes onto the system, it’s a much bigger problem when we are over-dependent on just one monoculture of energy. Hooking small systems of other energy sources into the larger grid makes it more secure if centralized power gets shut down. In addition localizing more power generation means less energy line losses.

During the hearing, Representative Raymond Dehn said there is nothing in this bill that makes the grid less susceptible to terrorist strikes mainly because the bill is so inconsiderate of our space to create decentralized energy freedom. Distributed generation creates a more secure grid and therefore those against net metering are against a diversified grid and therefore its security.

Garofalo Stated that he had set $45 million for distributed generation in the bill. That alone would redeem the omnibus bill somewhat. But earlier toward in the hearing I recall it was Garofalo who stated “There is nothing environmentally beneficial about distributed generation, but it is more expensive.”
Weakening of net metering means undermining our freedom to generate our own energy and to sell and to choose diversified sources of energy.

Giving energy monopolies the leverage to stifle small producer’s ability to go renewable is not what Minnesota voters and constituents across the political spectrum want. 76% of voters polled in Minnesota Power’s service territory supported the 10% solar by 2030 goal in 2013. It is what legislators who wined and dined him at ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) conferences are bribed into to bringing up.
The American Legislative Exchange Council, (ALEC) is a closed-door, secretive membership group for conservative corporatist state lawmakers, that has drafted cookie-cutter model legislation for dozens of state legislatures attacking net metering and clean energy mandates.
The ALEC chair for the Minnesota State House is none other than the author of the omnibus energy bill himself!

Here is the Bill Summary: http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/bs/89/HF0843.pdf

Political Cynicism and Resignation: the Other Enemy from Citizens United

How are things different now in the Post-Citizens United world as far as how our government responds in contrast to the time of the first Earth Day? More and more people will be discouraged from participating in a rigged democracy, from informing themselves on politics and from showing up on election day as a result. 

Here is the prophetic dissent of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens to the Citizens United Ruling. He predicted that the 5-4 ruling would lead to fewer and fewer people even making the effort to vote. Here are his words from the bench:

"When citizens turn on their televisions and radios before an election and hear only corporate electioneering, they may lose faith in their capacity, as citizens, to influence public policy. A Government captured by corporate interests, they may come to believe, will be neither responsive to their needs nor willing to give their views a fair hearing. The predictable result is cynicism and disenchantment: an increased perception that large spenders call the tune and a reduced willingness of voters to take part in democratic governance."

In a testament to public alienation, eighty-five percent of those polled in a study believe that members of Congress are more interested in serving special interests than the people they represent.

A politically disengaged populace makes it easier for the government to be captured by these predatory corporate vultures where no one else outside of their interests gets to have a fair say.

A captured, unresponsive, gridlocked government is a breeding ground for further cynicism and disenchantment among citizens, voters and their participation. 

Justice Stevens added that unlimited corporate donations gives a power tool that the plutocrats could also scare elected politicians to keep in line with the sheep herd. 

"To the extent that corporations are allowed to exert undue influence in electoral races, the speech of the eventual winners of those races may also be chilled. Politicians who fear that a certain corporation can make or break their reelection chances may be cowed into silence about that corporation."

Most people still technically get a vote and the plutocrat's favored candidate is not guaranteed a win. However big money has an outsized say in the agenda should be even if the plutocrats favored candidate does not win.

A Basic Refute of Corporate Personhood

James Bopp Jr. was the attorney who worked as a legal adviser on Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. He invoked the same perverted twist on “free speech” as McCutcheon did but with a corporate personhood flavor:

"The Supreme Court has ruled that corporate political speech is protected by the First Amendment, and you cannot ban political speech just because the speaker is a corporation," said Bopp.

It is important to break down the meaning of this haunting quote. One fallacious equivalency is to put a faceless corporate multinational business entity (legally programmed as robots produce profits at all costs) on the same playing field as a flesh-and-blood human being. The second fallacious equivalency is to call money speech of which a logical consequence is the more money someone has the more speech that person has a right to. When these two fallacious equivalencies become married their child is the dangerously wrongheaded Frankenstein monster that the Citizens United Ruling set the spark of life to.

Given what James Bopp said, don’t we the people have the right and ability to pool resources together to advocate for views?

Yes that is legitimate free speech but corporate money is not the same as the people’s money pooled together. Government gives corporations special advantages to make them effective in the economic sphere, not the status of “disadvantaged persons” entitled to a “voice” for the political sphere.

Corporations have only privileges under the law not individual rights.

McCutcheon Tarnishing the Name of Free Speech

Whatever rationalizations 5 Supreme Court justices had to rule in favor of Citizens United and McHutcheon, let's get to the heart of the matter and cut away this fluff about free speech.

Citizens United and McHutcheon are about exertion of naked corporate power while free speech is just a flimsy mask to cover up the ugly face of corruption.

These 5 out-of-touch Supreme Court justices that ruled the aggregate $123,000 campaign donation limits as unconstitutional under the First Amendment are wrong on logic, law and history. It was not McCutcheon's constitutional right that was being violated. Money is nowhere in the first Amendment. It is an illegitimate court- created doctrine. 

Yet predictably so, first Amendment freedom of speech is the cover that Shawn McCutcheon used in his published op-ed titled: DonationCaps Hurt Democracy: 

“Since the earliest days of our republic we have been able to express that freedom by contributing money to the political candidates of our choosing... Getting rid of aggregate limits is not about corrupting democracy — it is about practicing democracy and being free.”

Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts echoed this “see no evil” denial of corruption by quoting the Citizen's United ruling, claiming "ingratiation and access … are not corruption".  Basically the only thing that qualifies as corruption under Robert’s overly narrow and disingenuous definition of “quid pro quo corruption” is the image of a late 19^th century-style robber baron directly placing a sack of bribe money on the desk of one of their compliant congresspersons.

Where is there not corruption? McCutcheon slammed his foot on the accelerator as far as speeding up this vicious cycle of corruption where the corporate elite buy politicians that will give them bailouts, subsidies, tax breaks and deregulation. Making the already rich even richer under these eviscerated election spending laws will empower and enable them to buy even more politicians in the next election eventually locking in a long term bi-partisan corporatist majority. This vicious cycle of corruption is basically the inverse mirror image version of the Republican’s recurring nightmare vision of the poor and minorities voting in mass to secure themselves endless welfare benefits and locking in a permanent Democratic majority.

Futhermore how can this be “speech” if the plutocrat billionaires celebrate secrecy and want to hide the identity of which donor is bankrolling which campaign ad (an issue that the filibustered DISCLOSE act would have addressed)?

These rulings made in the flowery and friendly name of free speech would not be so dangerous and corrupting if the distribution of wealth and income in this nation weren’t already so grotesquely skewed into the hands of so few. The richest four hundred Americans now have more wealth than the poorest 150 million Americans put together. That is why in 2010 the 0.01% of richest Americans accounted for one fourth of all the money given to politicians, parties and political action committees.

Shaun McCutcheon himself has made an irritating display of inverted patriotism, revisionist freedom and feigned allegiance to founding principles by making donations of the symbolically significant $1,776 to 15 different candidates.

However, the Shaun McCutcheon definition of freedom applies to only about 600 people in the whole entire nation. Only 591 donors in the entire country gave the maximum allowance of $46,200 to federal candidates in 2012, according to data from Center for Responsive Politics. So few people have both the desire and the ability to do such a feat that this is a freedom not worth defending.

But according to the Robert's Court, the purported constitutional right of a few hundred super-rich plutocrats to spend virtually unlimited sums on campaign contributions is more important than congress’s right to regulate campaign spending.

Public financing of campaigns would cause the conspirators for a permanent corporatist political majority to squeal like a tortured pig in resistance. But the legislators themselves might actually like robust campaign finance reform. It would give them the freedom to be authentic and to actually do their job instead of spending every possible remaining moment of their week dialing for dollars. If only candidates were not on such a constant uphill treadmill have to raise so many millions for media buys, the 0.1% would not have such a hammerlock control over our political process.

Giving private money free reign to interfere with our public decision making is an endorsement of highly concentrated power. The dispersion and accountability of power is the key to a thriving democracy. That is why we need respect people's ability to run for office without being tethered to corporate money and for politicians who are already in office to not have to be dependent upon the corporate elite to give them the cash they need to run in the first place. Isn’t it only fair for broadcasters provide free air time to candidates in exchange for use of our airwaves? Or is that an arrangement which is forbidden because would foil the evil plot of the oligarchs?

The Partisanship Theory on Citizens United, McCutcheon etc.

Notice the pattern of these 5-4 Supreme Court decisions for Citizens United, against the voting rights act, and for McCutcheon. We could also include the Bush v Gore and Texas redistricting and Indiana voter ID law cases as part of the pattern. It is quite easy to come to the conclusion that every decision these 5 Republican-appointed Justices have made regarding elections and voting are nothing more blatant moves to help get more Republicans elected.

Though rank and file Republicans might not agree with Citizens United and McCutcheon, the acts of GOP party insiders and elected officials strengthen this theory that the 5 Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices only ruled this way for partisan reasons rather than any other principles.

For example take Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who has deep pockets for big corporate donations but faces abysmal approval numbers and a tough re-election this year. He testified in front of the Supreme Court and actively encouraged the justices to intervene in favor of McCutcheon's big-money politics. McConnell is also the one who led the challenge of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms all the way to the Supreme Court. As Senate minority leader, he has blocked crucial judicial nominees and FEC commissioners who support campaign finance restrictions.

In another example, the finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ray Washburne, told the New York Times  "Eureka" when heard the news that the Supreme Court eviscerated the aggregate limits. At the time he was traveling to Chicago to solicit money from two big funders who had reached their aggregate donation limit for this election cycle. And then just six mere after the McCutcheon ruling, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee launched a joint fundraising committee.

One caveat is that these Supreme rulings do not guarantee the GOP election victories. But these rulings certainly tilt the playing field in favor of candidates who are short on ethics, morals and new ideas that are popular with voters but long on access to brute cash to fund attack ads from which they could hide behind. Meanwhile progressive candidates who are long on ethics, morals and new ideas that are popular with voters but can't get multiple billionaires to cut fat checks for them are put at an unfair disadvantage in the competition.

It is easy to accuse these Republican-appointed justices of doing nothing more than greasing the skids for an oligarchic dystopia where their a handful of favored billionaires like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson get to call the shots of our political process.

It seems like low hanging fruit to make partisan hay out of the Republican Party establishment's allegiance to McCutcheon and such an unpopular issue as opening the floodgates to even more money in politics.

We could easily tar state-level elected Republicans who vote as a block against (Move to Amend sponsored) anti-Citizens United constitutional amendments, as sycophants for the billionaire elite who have too little appeal to raise their money the grassroots way. We could easily impugn them as unprincipled opportunists who throw all populist sense out the window to maintain a national campaign rule arrangement that will help more of their kind get elected.

But it is dangerous to turn Citizens United/ McCutcheon into just another Republican vs. Democrat partisan polarized stalemate like we so tragically see with the issue of global warming. A much better outcome is to use this as wedge issue to divide much of the the Republican rank and file from their party insiders and officials.

In the 2012 election grassroots ballot initiatives to overturn Citizens United won amazingly consistent support from all across an otherwise polarized political spectrum. Anti-Citizens United initiatives just as much voter approval in the “purple” swing state of Colorado (72% for Amendment 65 demanding that Congress draft a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United) and the libertarian “red” state of Montana (76% for Initiative 166 declaring that corporations do not have constitutional rights) as deeply “blue” Democratic Chicago (74% for approving a local initiative demanding that Congress propose an amendment reversing Citizens United).

About ¾ of Americans whether Democrat, Republican, or Independent oppose the Citizens United ruling and don’t agree that for-profit corporations should have the right to flood political campaigns with tidal waves of cash. 

What polling numbers above 75% for the constitutional Amendment means is that we could get the center-right to join in alliance with the progressives and isolate the far right and the corporate personhood apologists to the fringes.

Could it be done?

The elected powers that be could neuter such a big-tent political alliance simply by denying us opportunities to hold votes or ballot initiatives on the issue unless there is such a strong bipartisan movement that it is clear they will be voted out for blocking moves to amend.  

The Supreme Court's consistent 5-4 absurdity with voting and elections

      There have been gradual series of previous judicial challenges to campaign finance rules (such as Buckley vs. Valejo in 1976) that equate monetary contributions with 1st amendment free speech rights that corporations somehow have. These culminated in the corporate personhood supernova with the Supreme Court's Citizens United v. FEC ruling in January 2010. The Supreme Court ruled that corporations (even if they are foreign owned) and the wealthy individuals behind them are at liberty to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence U.S. elections. The only firewall remaining is that they have to spend it independently of the candidate or party’s official campaign. In other words, the remaining limits are not very meaningful. The Citizens United v. FEC decision brought Super PACs roaming through our political landscape in a way the resembles the Lord of Darkness scene in Fantasia. According to the Billion Dollar Democracy report by Demos “More than 93 percent of the money Super PACs raised came in contributions of at least $10,000—from just 3,318 donors, or the equivalent of 0.0011 percent of the US population.”

Thanks to Alabama Coal Baron and profligate Republican Donor Shawn McCutcheon winning a rigged game at the Supreme Court with their ruling announced on April 2nd 2014, the entitled plutocrats have less of a need to go through political action committees or falsely defined "social welfare" organizations (such as Karl Rove's Crossroads organization) to place their political bets.

While the cap on donations to a single candidate still stands, what McCutcheon got recently the Supreme Court to rule as unconstitutional was the $123,200 aggregate limit for what any individual donor could give to candidates, parties or PAC's in a two-year election cycle. The aggregate limits are now an estimated $3.6m in an election cycle for a plutocrat who theoretically wanted buy up the whole Congress.

Here is what it absurd about the whole ordeal. While the 5 activist justices argued that legal precedent did not apply in their Citizens United ruling, they now used the “non-precedent” Citizens United ruling as a legal precedent for their McHutcheon ruling.

Here is what is even more outrageous about the whole spectacle. These same 5 Justices who made it easier for billionaires to buy elections were the same ones who made it more difficult for actual flesh and blood people to cast a vote in one through their similarly 5 - 4 Shelby County v. Holder decision in 2013 which ripped out the heart of the voting rights act. So according to the Roberts court the First Amendment’s phony “permitting” of wealthy donors and powerful corporations to buy an election commands more respect than the Fifteenth Amendment’s genuine granting of our right to cast a vote free of racial discrimination.

Since the Shelby County decision, at least seven states currently under GOP gubernatorial and legislative control which were previously covered under Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act have passed or implemented new voter restriction laws (Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, Virginia, South Carolina, and North Carolina) passive aggressive ways to make it more cumbersome for to the less privileged to vote.