Legislative Update
Greetings,
It continues to be a very busy Fall season as our local agricultural experts harvest and prepare their fields for our next growing season. It also continues to be a busy season for conferences and Capital Investment (bonding) tours!
Pregnancy Options Gala
Last Saturday evening, Jeanne and I joined many others at the annual Pregnancy Options Gala in Faribault where Mr. Jeff Evans, CEO of the Minnesota Family Council, spoke to all the guests. Support for Pregnancy Options continues to grow and expand as a new clinic is opening in Owatonna soon. Watch for the official announcement in our local calendars.
Rumors from the Rotunda Energy Panel
On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to sit on a panel titled: Rumors from the Rotunda, as well as to listen to several other panel discussions at the Minnesota Solar Energy Industries Association (MnSEIA) annual conference. First of all, I would like to thank Mr. Syd Briggs, President of Steele-Waseca Cooperative, and others who helped me prepare for this panel discussion. As you know, I am a member of the Energy committee and we are always looking for ways to lower our energy costs while making sure we sustain our very high reliability and safety standards. Of course, solar and wind are no longer new, and they are key elements of our “all in” energy portfolio in Minnesota and beyond. Several of us want to help grow these options by making them more competitive with all our forms of energy. Furthermore, up until fairly recently, our use of electricity across the country was declining as efficiencies increased. Then, data centers and prevalence of electric automobiles changed the market. Now, as we look to the future, our use of electricity will increase dramatically and our generation and transmission assets must grow even faster to keep up. Watch for much more discussion of these issues in the near term.
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Northeast MN Bonding Tour
Right after the MnSEIA conference, I drove up to Duluth to join the Capital Investment committee Northeast Minnesota Bonding tour. Although I missed day one, due to the MnSEIA conference, we had the opportunity to tour many of our local municipalities and colleges seeking bonding assistance on Wednesday and Thursday. Clearly, we have a significant challenge across the state with drinking water and clean water (sewage treatment) infrastructure degradation. In addition, many of the local colleges we built in the 1970’s and 1980’s need infrastructure updates and roof replacements. Thus, prioritizing all these very expensive projects continues to be very challenging.
Special Session...
As you are seeing in the news, the chances of a special session this Fall are very low, because an agreement has not been reached on the type of legislation that should be considered. Clearly, we need to address and fund increased security for our schools, hold criminals accountable for their actions with full sentences, and provide great assistance to address our mental health crisis. Again, while posturing in front of the media continues to occur, senior leaders, including Governor Walz, continue to meet to discuss options. As of this week, Governor Walz has admitted the fact that a special session should not be called without an agreement in place, which is a shift from his previous position in which he wanted to call the special session regardless.
Coffee with Tom
Please feel free to join me for Coffee with Tom at the Owatonna Chamber of Commerce on Friday, November 7th at the Owatonna Chamber of Commerce from 12:00pm-1:00pm.
Our next meeting in Waseca will be on Friday, November 14th at the Waseca Chamber of Commerce. Unfortunately, due to committee and travel conflicts in October, we could not find a viable option for an October date.
Thank you for your support and feedback!
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