State Representative David Bly, MN District 25B

The Governor let us know his blue print for the historic budget shortfall. His plan is, “Cut taxes and increase spending.” Sound familiar? I don’t know anybody who seriously believes that we can solve this problem without taxes going up at some level of government. We can’t cut spending deeply enough and make things come [...]

 
“It is possible to fight over oil but not over wind and sun!”
These were the words of Wilfried (Willi) Voigt, Germany’s former Secretary of Energy, as he presented environmentally friendly energy producing ideas and methods at a conference held at St. Olaf on January 9, 2009. Sponsoring the conference was John Farrell of the [...]

The House and Senate joint environmental and energy group has worked to address budget issues in the deficit reduction bill. Included in the bill are several provisions I authored focusing on quickly energizing our Green Economy in Minnesota. We want to infuse venture capital and long term investment in Minnesota’s burgeoning clean energy economy.
You probably [...]

On Monday afternoon, April 7, 2008, Governor Pawlenty used the line-item veto 52 times to trim the bonding bill to $717 million – a reduction of 13%. Basically the Governor vetoed thousands of jobs that would have been created all around our state at the time when Minnesota’s economy needs the extra boost. The line-item [...]

On March 30th, 2008, Will Steger and his international team of young explorers embarked on a two-month dogsled expedition across the extreme and stunning landscape of Ellesmere Island in the Canadian High Arctic. The team will travel to the front lines of global warming documenting melting ice shelves and the impact on critical animal habitat. [...]

Just a reminder that the April 4, 2008 deadline is approaching for requests for seed money available from the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation. Up to $25,000 in seed capital is available for biobusinesses through the newly created Bio Seed Fund. These funds are designed to support start up and expanding bio-medical, bio-agriculture and renewable energy [...]

The creation of green-collar jobs and legislation to reduce global warming will be addressed this session. The 2008 Legislature is committed to finding ways to save our environment and improve the quality of life for not only ourselves but that of future generations.

That is the headline of a March 14 editorial in the Rochester Post-Bulletin.  The Legislature has accomplished more in one month than some Legislature’s handle in an entire session and we have just begun. Some of the accomplishments are:
The first comprehensive transportation package in 20 years.
Early passage in the House of a Capital Investment/Jobs bill [...]

In an earlier blog on the District 25B Energy Summit held on January 31, I talked about the need for a program called Feed-In Tariffs. A feed-in tariff is a fixed price for renewable energy that the local utility company pays to local renewable energy producers. The producers then generate renewable energy either through solar [...]