A Response to Senator Utke

Tags

Enbridge, Line 3, Utke

Senator Utke,
Last night I was reading your email update and almost replied.  Then I decided it’d just be a waste of my time as you seem so convinced that you are doing the right thing already.  But then a neighbor here in Clearwater county called and, when your proposed legislation came up in conversation, they mentioned they were going to call your office on it – and they used some words that weren’t very Minnesota Nice about what they thought of you, but I won’t repeat those here.  

That conversation encouraged me to not only contact you regarding this issue, but also to copy Keith Ellison as the Attorney General may have something to consider on your three bills, none of which happen to agree with my beliefs of what is right, and which I actually believe are ineffective (1708), unAmerican (1757), and probably unconstitutional (2011).  I give you points for using scare tactics and false statements in your message to constituents but some of us rural folks don’t cow to the fear mongering but instead think logically about what you share and can smell the BS.
Find my responses below:

S.F. 1708, Not apparently SF 1708

Note: Not sure how Paul’s bill fits exactly. As you will notice from the above links, the second appears to be a bill related to health care while the first
says this (in a completely different format to the other links to Senate bills in this blog but which ironically is much clearer than the email verbiage quoted below from Senator Utke):
SF 1708 requires that the state pay the full amount of any refund owed as a result of overpayment of property taxes on state-assessed properties. Under current law, the commissioner of revenue is responsible for assessing railroad, and utility and pipeline operating property. If a railroad or utility company appeals an assessment, and the Minnesota Tax Court holds that the property’s market value is lower than it was initially valued, a refund of the overpayment of property tax is ordered. The amount of the refund is charged to all the different taxing jurisdictions that imposed a levy on the property. This proposal requires that the state, instead of the local taxing jurisdictions, pay the full amount of the refund. An open appropriation from the general fund to the commissioner of revenue is provided to make the necessary payments. [Yeah, much clearer than his words to constituents which begs the question… Why? Why not simply say that the State of Minnesota will be liable for the refund on over-payment, rather than something about a warrant being required for payment from the counties?]

You report: “This bill addresses an issue that is very important to our local counties, cities and townships.  The Minnesota Department of Revenue sets the assessed value for state-wide infrastructure like pipelines, electric power lines, communication infrastructure and more.  Since 2012 the state assessed values have seen large increases and now Minnesota is assessing a value that is 25-35% higher than our surrounding states.  These utility companies all do business in many states, so they know when the values have grown to unreasonable levels.  Our utility companies are now taking the Department of Revenue to Tax Court and are winning.  Current law would have our counties, cities and townships responsible for paying back these overcharges.  Our counties, cities and townships do not participate in the assessment process nor do they participate in the defending the assessment in tax court.”

While I agree that finances are always a concern, I believe most of us appreciate the many benefits that government brings and so we don’t mind paying our taxes. It seems a small amount to pay for roads, schools, snow removal, administrators, and services for the veterans, disenfranchised, elderly, disabled, and marginalized. These taxes even pay for people like you to be doing what you do.  So we expect that to be representative of ALL of us. 

And, yes, we want corporations to pay their fair share too – which it seems they often fail to do.  Taxes on the corporations, especially pipelines, are such a pittance of their income, that Minnesota SHOULD be charging them a premium to make billions in profits while risking our land, water, and air to the pollutants that ONLY THEY control. Citizens have no ability to control their maintenance and safety practices, only the oil companies do. And you don’t want to get me started on the latest propaganda Enbridge is spewing everywhere about their 99.999% safety record.  What a crock!!  I was in Quality Control for years in the steel industry and I have never heard of a company with that kind of safety record unless it’s a medical device company where they use 100% testing to assure the safety of each product.  And even THEY still have failures.  We all know that Enbridge has one of the worst reputations in the industry for safety so it’s laughable that they would use a safety record in their advertising. They are counting on the gullible, the time-constrained, and the already-on-board to believe this figure without a thought.  But they offer no transparency in the source for this figure.  Any scientist or industry employee can see the ridiculousness of this number. I believe we should challenge them on it and THAT IS A JOB YOU COULD WELL SPEND SOME TIME ON AS A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PEOPLE.  Please let me know if you decide to take up the cause.

You further say in your email on the bill “This bill requires the commissioner of revenue to issue a warrant for payment of any judgement made against our local governments related to utility property tax over-payments,” but what does that do exactly to protect the county?  Give them a 30-day reprieve to push out their re-payment?  Enbridge is looking for about $20M in recompense over the span of years in question from Clearwater County alone! That’s more than THREE ANNUAL BUDGETS worth of funding for our county!  I fail to see from your report what this bill does to protect or help our county.  It seems only to add another layer of bureaucracy to an already over-burdened system of paperwork and decision-making.

S.F. 1757

You report: “This bill says that the Commissioner of Commerce is prohibited from using appropriations to the Department of Commerce to fund activities related to or supporting the appeal of the Public Utilities Commission order issuing the certificate of need for the Line 3 Replacement project.  We have one department of state government suing another department of state government over political issues.  This is not a good or proper use of any taxpayer money!”  Really???

It looks more to me like you can see that there is a very REAL possibility that the scientists at the DOC will succeed in their suit against the PUC, currently being revealed to have made their decision in fallacy and outside their jurisdiction.  As was evident in the StarTribune LTEs this weekend, Minnesotans comprehend that the RISK of Line 3 FAR OUTWEIGHS the unnecessary “benefit” Enbridge is trying to sell.  And, as severe flooding in the Midwest and global catastrophes around the world make clear, it is time to end fossil fuel infrastructure.  It is time to move to renewables.  Just because you want a win for Enbridge doesn’t mean as a legislator that you can stop the judicial from carrying out their well-researched and important work.  Any win for Enbridge, who have divested of their renewable assets, will be a loss for Minnesotans and the planet as a whole.

Our system of three branches of government will hopefully prevent your attempt at trying to work-around the system – a maneuver I’m frankly sick of seeing from desperate Minnesota Republicans on Line 3.

S.F. 2011

You write: This bill is known as the Worker Safety and Energy Security Act.  It addresses issues that we are seeing more of each year and that relates to those that trespass and attempt to do damage to critical infrastructure.  Critical Infrastructure includes powerlines, pipelines, railroads, mass transit, airports, etc.  With this bill penalties are increased including restitution.   
Prosecutors already have some tools to go after valve turners and others who damage critical infrastructure, but the fact that vandals and trespassers keep turning valves in our state means that current laws are not deterring them.”

Oh, so much is truly wrong about your reporting here…  First, the name of the bill would more aptly be “The Criminalization of Free Speech Act”.  And there is a REASON we’re seeing more public outcry each year regarding the way the fossil fuel industry is literally, and almost single-handedly, KILLING OUR PLANET.  When industry and government refuse to act in ways that protect WE THE PEOPLE having a liveable planet, WE THE PEOPLE speak up.  This is the foundation of our democracy, in fact, the MAIN WAY much of the needed change has happened throughout American history when elected officials act in ways that are not much better at representing the people than corporations are at being “people”.

And what does this language in your bill even mean? “A person who is found criminally liable under section 609.05 based upon an underlying violation of this section and who is not a natural person shall be liable for a fine in an amount up to ten times the fine allowed for the underlying violation.”  How can a “person” be “not a natural person”??? Can you not write in plain layman’s terms what you really mean?  No, you cannot.  Because to do so would reveal the fact that WE THE PEOPLE are “natural people” while “not a natural person” refers to a “legal” person, or “an individual, company, or other entity which has legal rights and is subject to obligations,” which gets at the root of much of what is wrong in our current government, CORPORATIONS are NOT PEOPLE.  But it does make me wonder who you are targeting in your legislation… I do notice that you allow for free speech on behalf of laborers, so it must be some other kind of citizen.  Perhaps you can clarify to me who these natural and not natural people might be.

You calling the efforts of civically-engaged Americans like the Valve Turners an “attempt to do damage to critical infrastructure” shows again your attempt at fear-mongering and your misrepresentation of the facts.  These conscientious citizens are not attempting to “damage” infrastructure but to PREVENT the damage being done BY the infrastructure.  They use safe methods of taking action, which to date have resulted in the oil company itself turning off their pipelines.  As the court in Clearwater County showed in acquitting them, there was no case to be made against their actions!

Your attempt to support the utilities in this bill shows only how corrupt our current government is, embedded with corporations that are doing work that is damaging not only to the land, air, and water, but to the very PEOPLE you are supposed to represent.  Calling these citizens “vandals and trespassers” is an age-old way of misdirecting the public from seeing the real criminals, in this case, a foreign oil corporation that wants to risk Minnesota’s beauty to make big profits while giving as little of the riches to Minnesota as possible.  And if the citizens of this state knew the true risks, Enbridge’s true safety record, and the truth in how the entire process ran roughshod over the very people from whom we stole the land on which we now live, they surely would support these “vandals and trespassers”.  

As the global community, including many Americans who are behind the curve (let’s not go down the path of discussing our educational system at this point, though that topic does warrant discussion), awakens to the climate crisis which has been unfolding for decades, and for which almost nothing has been done by politicians and CEOs, you may find your own awakening to the truth.  Spoiler alert… It’s time to move to renewable energy which will bring thousands more jobs than your friends at Enbridge.

PLEASE begin to work on ideas that ENHANCE our FUTURE, like renewable energy systems that bring lots of jobs, and ABANDON your outdated ideas like promoting the dying fossil fuel industry and using fear-mongering to control people while giving free reign to corporations.  America is changing and you need to change with us.

Thank you for your consideration.

Jami Gaither

Alida, MN

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Maintaining Hope in our Changing World

Tags

climate change, Enbridge, Keystone XL, Line 3, Student Strike for Climate, Valve Turners

Well it really has been such a roller coaster the last six months or so of the Line 3 fight. From gearing up excitedly last October when the Valve Turners came for trial to little Bagley, Minnesota to having a bittersweet acquittal. In that same week seeing the IPCC 4th Report on Climate Change and realizing how desperately forked we are because if THEY say we have twelve years to change, that probably really means we have six. And then a torrent of devastating global climate disasters from fires in California to hurricane Michael in Florida to extreme heat in Australia to an abnormally cold and wet Minnesota winter. The stories are daily and never-ending. Here’s some recent footage from flooding in Nebraska along the proposed Keystone XL route. Pretty disturbing. We’re even having to come up with new words to describe the madness unfolding before our very eyes. A friend of mine, Chelsea, posted this crazy event with the following: “Fire tornado, atmospheric river, polar votex, bomb cyclone—we have to invent new vocabulary for the extreme weather events we’re facing as our climate continues to destabilize.”

And if it’s not a climate event, it’s another scientific report confirming the true mess that is unfolding. The latest UN report says we’re now locked in for 3-5 degrees Celsius temperature rise in the Arctic, even IF we hit the agreements in the Paris Accord. A government report showed that Trump’s budget is cutting funds for climate research and renewable energy. And locally it’s reported that Southwest Minnesota lakes are too polluted for swimming or fishing.

But all is not lost just yet. In the last couple days, there has been much to celebrate: A judge in Boston has ruled that ExxonMobil must face charges regarding its terminal at Mystic river. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an injunction on preliminary construction along the proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline, which could possibly delay the start of construction by an entire year. Kids in 123 countries around the world stood up for Climate Action. The J20 charges were dropped, Even Shell asked Trump to NOT loosen methane rules! And there was this wonderful update on the pipeline situation.

Though continued bad news still shows where we need change. From South Dakota Tribes asking the capitol to not fly their flags, representative of the continued assault on the original inhabitants of these lands by colonizers, to the revelation that at Xcel Energy Center, Polymet can have a voice but ticket holders cannot, showing again how the voice of the People is drowned out by the power of Corporations, sometimes it can be daunting.

Even the youngest among us are speaking up, this one adds a bit of fun to what is truly a challenging new book, “Goodbye, Earth“, by Zayn Cowie. You can read it here.

And in Minnesota, we continue to see everyday citizens stand up and voice concerns about Line 3. In this case, in opposition to the Star Tribune Editorial Board’s recommendation “For safety’s sake, let Enbridge build”, which came on the heels of their endorsement of Tim Walz 100% clean energy plan “Time to move ahead with clean energy”.

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.

Jerry Striegel, LTE 3/17/19 StarTribune

My favorite line in the reader response may be from Rami Jubara, “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.” But there was also James Doyle’s “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.”  

Luckily, we can still maintain some hope. NPR gave this recent story on what could be.

But THIS is the blog I’d have written if I was smarter. It’s a wonderful summary of the current state on Line 3. While there is some to celebrate, like the lawsuits still fighting all aspects of the Line 3 approval, there is much to give concern as well:

Sen. Paul Utke, R-Park Rapids, introduced SF 1757 to defund the Department of Commerce’s lawsuit. (It passed out of one Senate committee and is now in the Senate Finance Committee.)

Healing Minnesota Stories 3/14/19 blog

This blog notes that Canada can’t even get a pipeline built in their own country. And comments: “In Minnesota, sales of finished petroleum products (gas, diesel, fuel oil, etc.) has been declining since 2004. We don’t need the extra crude oil here. There is no reason Minnesota should take on huge risks this pipeline poses for little if any benefit.”

Thank you, Minnesota Healing Stories, for your continued excellent coverage of not just the Line 3 issue but also the many stories on history and current events that highlight Indigenous Peoples.

Book Review: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

I read this book in late 2018 and recently needed to return it, finding my many tabs marking what I felt were important sections of prose.  I decided that I’d write a brief review to capture those ideas.

If you’re not familiar with the book, it’s written by a neurosurgeon and writer who was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer as he was finishing his residency and a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience. The memoir describes his life experience that led to him becoming a neurosurgeon as well as his contemplation on how to face his swiftly oncoming mortality. 

Early on, he questions, “What makes human life meaningful?”  He reckoned that literature gave the best accounting of the life of the mind while neuroscience laid out the rules of the brain.  He notes in particular T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land which relates meaninglessness and isolation and how Nabokov helps us see how our suffering can make us callous to the obvious suffering of others.  But my favorite reference was to Conrad, perhaps because of some minor ongoing communication problems between Dan and I at the time – noting “his hypertuned sense of how miscommunication between people can so profoundly impact their lives.  I find this idea quite interesting as I contemplate the many times through the years where I carried, perhaps unnecessarily, hurt or anger for something said by someone who had no intention of harming me.  Or the many times I have felt guilt for things I’ve done which were subsequently confirmed as unmemorable by the one toward whom I felt said guilt.  I’m sure there are an equal number of times I’ve caused pain but had no intention or recollection of harming another.

After recounting an amazing experience he had during a summer working as a prep chef at Sierra Camp on the shores of Fallen Leaf Lake.  He notes a friend’s summation of their time there:

Suddenly now, I know what I want.  I want the counselor’s to build a pyre…and let my ashes drop and mingle with the sand. Lose my bones amongst the driftwood, my teeth amongst the sand.   I don’t believe in the wisdom of children, nor in the wisdom of the old.  There is a moment, a cusp, when the sum of gathered experience is worn down by the details of living.  We are never so wise as when we live in the moment.

Pages 34-35, When Breath Becomes Air

His move from literature to biology is clearly shown in this paragraph. 

His praise for Shep Nuland’s How We Die (p. 52) has resulted in my pulling it from the shelf for the To Read pile.

I love his discussion on how brain surgery, as with other major life events, causes us to ask important questions along the lines of what is most important to us.  He eloquently writes:

Would you trade your ability – or your mother’s – to talk for a few extra months of mute life? … The expansion of your visual blind spot in exchange for eliminating the small possibility of a fatal brain hemorrhage? Your right hand’s function to stop seizures? How much neurologic suffering would you let your child endure before saying that death is preferable?  

Page 71, When Breath Becomes Air

And he shows the vulnerability of us all as he describes having a conversation with someone he respected greatly describing the person as “a moral exemplar” who asked him, “Paul, do you think my life has meaning? Did I make the right choices?”  I guess we all question whether we did what’s right, whether we did our best, as we face what appears to be pending death.  After this same friend had completed a year of treatment and was back to work, he told Kalanithi that “today is the first day that all the suffering seems worth it.”  And this gave him a realization of how little physicians “understand the hells through which we put patients.”

He vulnerably details the effect of his medications on his physical self, and how this affected his relationship with his wife as well as his own self-image.  He discusses the emotional battles and describes the importance of his relationship with his oncologist.  And he again turns to literature as he tries to make sense of it all.

I was searching for a vocabulary with which to make sense of death…

Page 148, When Breath Becomes Air

He denotes going through the process of grief [Denial – Anger – Bargaining – Depression – Acceptance] in reverse order (page 161-162).  This makes perfect sense to me as I’ve studied a bit about grief and realize there is no real true diagram of a grief process.  Unless it’s this:

Photo Credit: Andrea Weir

His wife Lucy writes the epilogue for the book, completed after his death.  I love that it so openly shares the experience, especially of the time of his passing.  She writes in a paragraph at the bottom of page 215: “Paul’s decision not to avert his eyes from death epitomizes a fortitude we don’t celebrate enough in our death-avoidant culture. His strength was defined by ambition and effort, but also by softness, the opposite of bitterness.  He spent much of his life wrestling with the question of how to live a meaningful life, and his book explores that essential territory.”

She talks of how he faced “his illness with grace – not with bravado or a misguided faith that he would “overcome” or “beat” cancer but with an authenticity that allowed him to grieve the loss of the future he had planned and forego a new one.”

I love that she talks about the love she feels, even after his being gone from this plane.  I respect that she recounts the struggles of their confrontation with the disease as well as the beauty of the time they had together.  And I truly believe it was the courage to find and face truth, looking at what brings meaning, that made his life not only meaningful for them, but for all of us who share in reading their story.

I am officially a Twit

Tags

activism, Line 3, StopLine3, Twitter

Well, I never thought I’d jump into it but… I had a workshop this past weekend around how to use Twitter as a activism tool. And WOW! It is pretty powerful. I remember years ago watching all those news shows with tweets popping up in their broadcasts and thinking, “Who really cares about what these people have to say?” But I realize now, the power of linking voices in a platform that allows me to find supporters, target changemakers, and possibly even fix our climate catastrophe.

Twitter Page Header 2-25-2019

Why Twitter? While Facebook has some tagging ability and much sharing potential, Twitter allows one to direct message any group or individual with a Twitter handle. OK, handle is one of the many words I’m learning have a different meaning that I originally thought. But handle is a good word as you can use it to grab a handle on someone to get their attention. When you want to tag someone in your Tweet, you use the ampersand: @JamiG4MN When you want to label a Tweet as associated with something, you use a hashtag: #ActOnClimate Another new word is “card” which is the picture that pops up on your Tweet. [Yes, I am feeler younger by the minute!]

At present, I’m just beginning. I have had to delete 3-4 Tweets as I didn’t like the way they presented. So I’m a SLOW Tweeter!! But I’m getting there. I’m following some folks and some are following me (mostly my friends from the Twitter workshop!) and I look forward to seeing how this works as a tool for generating change.

If you’re a Twit too, come follow me! Together, perhaps we can change the world.

UPDATE 3-8-19: Oh, boy!! I got a mention at MN350 this week after the #SeenAndHeardTraining – yes, check out our fun class on Twitter! 🙂

Guess that 200+ hours I’ve put in since 2019 started is really making a difference! Kinda feel like I’m back to work but it’s working for a cause in which I truly believe so that brings hope, just as Greta Thunberg promised. Power to the People, indeed!! Love her and the school strikes for climate. “Why should we be studying for a future that soon may not exist anymore?” I’m with her. Focusing on saving the planet is way more important than any job I’ve had before.