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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Decision Favors Power Lines; Opponents Say “Judges Got it Wrong”

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Friday, August 17, 2007   

While supporters of the Big Stone II power plant are celebrating, a coalition of renewable energy and conservation groups says two Minnesota administrative law judges ‘got it wrong’ when they ruled this week that the Big Stone II Power Plant should be allowed to extend power lines into Minnesota. One of the dissenters Jim Madsen, chairman of the National Executive Board of the Izaack Walton League of America.

"It looks like the judge possibly ignored the fact that the Big Stone plant partners had not proven that the coal expansion was cheaper than alternative possibilities such as wind energy. Down the road we know that there’s going to be controls on carbon dioxide missions. Those controls might be $15 to $20 per ton and you’ve got a plant that’s belching out five million tons. The users are going to have to pay for that."

Supporters of the Big Stone II Plant consider the decision a major hurdle cleared in resolving the power line issue. Opponents argue it’s an example of short-term thinking with long-term problems. Madsen’s biggest concern is the carbon dioxide emissions.

"And to emit the amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and the mercury etc. literally send it into Minnesota, has got to be a big concern for everybody.”

Madsen agrees improved transmission lines are needed but that cleaner sources of power should be the focus.

"We’ve got all kinds of wind energy in this country and as we develop the techniques and the technologies we’re going to be able to utilize that without using something that, over the years, has just proven to be very dirty for the environment."

The five groups fighting the transmission lines are Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, Fresh Energy, Izaak Walton League of America, Union of Concerned Scientists and Wind on the Wires. The final decision still rests with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission.




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