New and expanded clean energy programming for 2018 was recently announced by the City’s Division of Sustainability at the Public Health, Environment, Civil Rights, and Engagement (PECE) Committee meeting on March 26. See Link https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/File/2018-00343   Through a collaborative engagement process with the Clean Energy Partnership, the following programs totaling nearly $1,000,000 were selected:

On Friday, April 27^th, the Minneapolis City Council approved a resolution to transition to 100 percent clean renewable electricity citywide by 2030, on a unanimous vote. The resolution also sets a much more immediate goal of 100 percent renewable electricity for municipal facilities and operations by 2022.

 Minneapolis now joins 64 other cities in the nation who have passed similar 100% renewable resolutions such as Atlanta; Boulder, Orlando, Madison, Portland, Ore; St. Louis, San Francisco; San Diego; Salt Lake City. Minnesota is the largest city in the Midwest to pass the resolution and the third City in Minnesota after Saint Louis Park and Rochester.

In addition to the resolution, Mayor Frey also joined the Sierra Club’s Mayors for 100% Clean Energy initiative, which already includes nearly 200 mayors nationwide.

There was no roll call vote taken at the April 16th House Committee Hearing on HF 3708, the fate of HF 3708 will be part of an insider process, perhaps being included as part of a larger legislative package.

       Some of the most important takeaways from the hearing:

On March 27th, 2018, the MN State Senate Energy and Utilities Finance and Policy Committee held a hearing on Nuclear Blank check bill SF 3504, and advanced it toward a full Senate vote.  

Due to hearing overwhelming lopsided opposition to the bill, the Senate Committee amended the language both before and during the hearing in order to justify advancing the measure on a 7 to 2 vote.  

See Coverage of hearing in MPR !

UPDATE: The Companion Bill HF 3708 had a House Hearing on April 16th & narrowly passed out of House Committee on April 20th. While SF 3504 passed the full Senate on May 14th, no full house vote took place before the end of session so the the bill did not advance. 

ORIGINAL HEARING POSTPONED TWICE, BILL REVISED TWICE

On both March 27th and five days earlier on March 22^nd, 2017 Community Power and Coalition partners provided a small dose of visual theatrics and a mini-rally in the hall of the State Senate building with our giant replica of a blank check prop, our "Xcel red box" prop and a "Mr. Moneybags" outfit. 

On March 22nd, the Committee abruptly and at the last minute cancelled the hearing we were anticipating on SF 3504 (after it had already been postponed once before, originally scheduled for March 20th).

In my phone conversation with the Committee administrator when I was requesting to testify at the public hearing on SF 3504, he told me that a lot of people had signed up to speak at the hearing, and I later learned the vast majority were opposed. So rather than face members of the public expressing fierce opposition on the unpopular bill on March 22nd, they schemed to reintroduce a somewhat different version of the bill for a hearing the following Tuesday, March 27^th. Amending the bill gave the committee a way to claim they were taking peoples concerns into account about safeguards for ratepayers and flexibility for the PUC.

However, the organizations who expressed opposition to the very brazen original language of SF 3504 remained opposed to the bill at the March 27th hearing and agreed the revised nuclear blank check bill still had the same “core” problem (pun kind of intended). 

As a result, Chair Osmek had to repeat the same technique of amending the bill to give the appearance of responding to public input. Osmek offered an amendment which passed the Committee unanimously and shortly after the Committee advanced the bill on a 7 to 2 vote. While Senator Goggin recused himself, all other Republicans voted yes, while the Committee’s 4 DFL members were split 2 against (Marty, Dibble) and 2 in favor (Hoffman, Simonson).   

21 OPPOSED. JUST 2 IN FAVOR.

The Senate Committee provided the roster of names who had requested to speak to about SF 3504 and it showed a total of 21 individuals having requested to testify against the bill and just 2 individuals having signed up the speak in favor.

The only non-Xcel speaker in favor was Andy Snope with the IBEW MN State Council. Despite anti-SF 3504 speakers outnumbering pro-SF 3504 speakers by a 10 to 1 ratio, Committee Chair Osmek decided to give the entire slate of opposition and supporters both the same 20 minutes total time slot to speak. As a result, only the top 10 individuals on the whole list got to speak.

 One additional handout at the hearing was also a joint letter penned by 4 different organizations (The Citizens’ Utility Board, AARP, Energy CENTs, and the MN Citizens Federation) opposing this bill.

ONLY 8 SPEAKERS OUT OF 21 GOT TO SPEAK, BUT THEY ECHOED A CONSISTENT MESSAGE

Update: Facing broad opposition, HF 3708 never received a full vote by the MN House before the adjournment of the legislative session, and so it did not move forward. 

HOT OFF THE HEELS OF LAST YEAR'S BLANK CHECK / REGULATORY WORKAROUND LEGISLATION 

 Xcel Energy’s team of over 45 registered lobbyists are once again shopping for a blank check from the MN State Legislature. In February of 2017, State Lawmakers exempted Xcel Energy from having to get Public Utilities Commission (PUC) permission to spend $1 Billion of their customers dollars on their desired billion-dollar new natural gas facility at the site of their retiring Sherco coal units. Having seen that they could walk away with essentially $1 Billion from the same legislature last year, Xcel lobbyists must have calculated that they thereby have a great shot at pulling off a similar regulatory workaround this year. In response, they have crafted another bill in much the same vain of circumventing accountability to the PUC, this time to allow Xcel Energy to charge its ratepayers $1.4 Billion or more for maintenance and repair costs for its nuclear plants without the usual PUC review processes.    

On Monday, March 12th this bill dropped as HF 3708 and got a senate Companion Bill, SF 3504, 2 day later. 

Overall, HF 3708 would remove the question of whether Xcel should extend the life of its aging nuclear plants from having to face the standard regulatory process, where the utility must demonstrate that it is the most cost effective option as compared with alternatives. 

Similar to the Sherco Gas Plant bill last year, HF 3708/ SF 3504 has already shown an unnerving level of bipartisan support, based on its 3-27-2018 Senate Committee hearing vote. 

HF 3708- A BLANK CHECK FOR UNKNOWN FUTURE COSTS 

The reason why HF 3708 creates a Blank Check is because it places no cap on the amount of money which Xcel could ask its customers to cover for projects to extend the life of its nuclear plants. While technically there is language on the bill referring to a cap on how much Xcel could spend, it is meaningless because Xcel gets to decide what the cap is.

HF 3708 would permit Xcel Energy to essentially spend as many hundreds of millions their customers dollars as they see fit on a project to extend the life of their Prairie Island Nuclear Plant beyond 2030, EVEN BEFORE ANYONE KNOWS THE FULL COST OF THE PROJECT. 

See Press Release from the Institute for Local Self Reliance warning against this bill and its accompanying video which parodies one of one of Xcel's TV ads !

The language of the original HF 3708 creates an artificial 10-month timeline by which the PUC must approve or deny the prudency of huge and perhaps mostly unknown expenses, even if based on almost no information.