Our First 2024 DFLEC Candidate Endorsements!

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We have begun our endorsement process, and we have our first candidate endorsements.

Visit our 2024 Endorsements page for the complete list of endorsements so far.

Kari Rehrauer is our first Environmental Clannenger.

Congresswoman Betty McCollum, Congressional Candidate Jen Schultz, and Minnesota House Representatives Patty Acomb, Esther Agbaje, Ginny Klevorn, Jamie Long and Liz Reyer are our first Environmental Champions.

Stay tuned, there are more coming!

We hope that you can donate to these candidates, either time or money, will speak well of them on Social Media, and if you are in their district, vote for them!

DFLEC Chair Megan Bond’s Remarks at the PIF Rally, 14 October, 2024

Environmental Issues, Sulfide Mining

I’m Megan Bond, and I’m chair of the DFL Environmental Caucus.

I also happen to live in a small town that is a gateway community to Voyageurs National Park, which borders the Boundary Waters to the west. Right on Rainy Lake, in the middle of the Rainy River Watershed. One of many small towns in the Arrowhead Region that serve as gateway communities to some of our greatest and wildest places, with thousands of lakes — big and small — and state and national forests and state and national parks — big and small.

The people of these small towns — with our teachers and construction workers and grocers and lawyers and Forest Rangers and biologists — are what keep the area functional so everyone can enjoy one of the most amazing places in America. Summer after summer. Even winter after winter.

I’m a newcomer to the north woods. The first time I went up there was in 2013. When I got home back here in the cities, I was sad. I’d fallen in love at first sight. Then a year later I found love that allowed me to make this magical place my home.

We need to protect these wild, precious places from the threat of irreversible devastating pollution. And we need to protect the people in the small towns that support these amazing wild places by electing clean water candidates! Like our environmental champions we heard from earlier this morning, who are among our strongest DFL leaders in the legislature.

And while she had to go her meeting with her Senator — and he’s one that really needs our lobbying — I also want to thank our Caucus’s Chair Emeritus, Veda Kanitz, who is here today with 10 of her science students who are here to exercise their voices at one of the other most important places in our state, as they get ready to vote for their first time in the coming years.

If you’re not already, Register to vote. And on February 27, attend your precinct caucuses. Introduce the Prove It First resolution. Run for delegate to your Senate District or Organizing Unit convention. Endorse clean water candidates! Then Run for delegate to your Congressional District and the State convention. Endorse clean water candidates. Get to Come to Duluth May 31-June 2 to pass the Prove It First Resolution into the DFL Action Agenda. Then Door knock and phone call and donate and fundraise for the Environmental Caucus and Friends of the Boundary Waters-endorsed candidates. Our environmental champions.

Help and vote to make sure we keep these wild places wild. To make sure our small towns and rural communities in the Northwoods are vibrant and protected.

To learn more about the Prove It First Resolution you can introduce at your precinct caucuses on February 27, go to the Environmental Caucus website at dflenvironment.org

Photo: Megan Bond (right) and Libby Bent at the Prove It First Rally. Photo by Veda Kanitz.

Agency Effectiveness: A Letter to Governor Walz

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Dear Governor Walz,

We write out of concern over a disturbing trend in the executive branch of our government. Policy decisions are being made regarding the environment which are antithetical to important goals of the DFL Environmental Caucus. These concerns are reflected in a letter dated December 11, 2023, to the governor’s office, from contact person Don Arnosti, signed by several dozen individuals and representing as many organizations, concerning “Community Members’ Request for Regulatory Accountability”. (Enclosed)

All Minnesotans deserve, need and want clean air, clean water, access to a protected natural landscape, biodiversity and wildlife conservation, and a livable planet. As a caucus, we advance these goals within the DFL party and more broadly. We take the concerns expressed in the letter seriously, and frankly, expect more from you and our state agencies.

The DFL Environmental Caucus has fought attempts to weaken environmental policy and supported decisions that fund and empower our agencies to safeguard health, to conserve and protect shared resources, and to honor tribal rights to hunt, fish and gather. The DFL’s action agenda and DFL Party Platform call for addressing many of these issues. We call on you to refocus your priorities on the health and safety of your citizens over the desires of multinational corporations. We call on you to direct state agencies to enforce regulations that already exist and to strengthen those that are weak. We call on you to increase accountability and transparency in all state agencies. The DFL Environmental Caucus will continue to hold educational forums, endorse and help elect environmental champions, and advocate for action on climate and other environmental issues to protect what humans need and love!

As a start, we would like to request an early February meeting with you to review our concerns and discuss policy and regulatory changes to correct these issues. Please contact Megan Bond at 562.826.6254 or mdbond82@gmail.com to set up the meeting.

Under your leadership, our 2023 legislature passed landmark legislation on climate, lead removal, environmental justice, and more. We are grateful for the progress our state has made. But we have much more work to do and are counting on you, Governor Walz, to lead the way.

Sincerely,

Bond, Chair and members of the DFL Environmental Caucus executive committee

What To Do About Plastics

Environmental Issues, Forums and Events

We were joined by Jennifer Congdon, Deputy Director of Beyond Plastics, and Lori Olinger, Zero Waste Chair of the Sierra Club Northstar Chapter, to discuss the problems of plastics and how to address them. Here is the forum:

Caucus members are hard at work in developing resolutions related to plastic and waste, as well as water-related resolutions (see previous forum). Please consider joining us in this activity!

When breakthrough technology that isn’t really breakthrough technology breaks through

Climate Change, Climate Change and Energy Transition, Uncategorized

Two very important papers are just out by Joe Romm. Hae a look.

1) Why scaling bioenergy and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is impractical and would speed up global warming

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) has generated great interest as global emissions have soared to 50 billion tons (Gt) a year of CO2 equivalent. In theory, biomass could remove CO2 out of the air as it grows, and a CCS system on the bioenergy power plant could permanently bury the CO2, making BECCS potentially a “negative” emissions technology.

But a growing body of research casts doubt on whether either bioenergy or BECCS are scalable climate solutions—or solutions at all. Those doubts are reinforced by findings from the first dynamic, integrated global modeling of BECCS by the researchers of Climate Interactive:

Click through to see the entire paper.

2) Why direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) is not scalable and ‘net zero’ is a dangerous myth

As global emissions have soared to 50 billion tons (Gt) of CO2 equivalent, carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategies have generated great interest. The three most widely analyzed and modeled are direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS), which pulls CO2 directly out of the air and stores it underground; planting trees; and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, whereby growing biomass removes CO2 from the air and a CCS system on the bioenergy plant could permanently bury it.

In theory, by combining deep emissions cuts (achieved by substituting carbon-free energy for fossil fuels) with a scaled-up CDR effort, we could bring total emissions down to “net zero.” But as other white papers in this series have explained, scaling tree planting faces major challenges, and scaling BECCS is impractical and would speed up global warming this century.

Click through to see the entire paper.

Is My Well Water Safe?

Environmental Issues, Environmental Poisons, Forums and Events

On October 29th, we held a forum on well water quality, pursuant to developing resolutions for the upcoming caucus-convention cycle.

We were joined by Rochester Geologist Jeff Broberg and MCEA’s Carly Griffith to learn about nitrate and arsenic contaminants in Minnesota’s well water. This forum was cohosted by the DFL Environmental Caucus and the DFL Rural Caucus.

See also: Southeast Minnesota struggles for common ground on nitrate pollution as health worries rise

For the latest on Nitrates in Minnesota’s drinking water, see this: EPA says Minnesota needs to take more action on nitrates in drinking water

Without Resolutions It Is Hard To Have An Environmental Revolution!

Environmental Issues

Each election cycle,the caucus generates a number of resolutions for our members (and others) to bring to their caucus, in the hopes that our aspirations will eventually turn into DFL party platform planks.

Our current resolutions, some of which did become planks, not only show you what we produced two years ago, but also, indicate the overall policy preferences of the caucus.

HERE you are welcome to fill in a form expressing your ideas for resolutions for the next cycle. Please try to do this soon. We will be writing, crafting, and finalizing our resolutions before the end of the year, for distribution to our membership in time for the caucuses on February 27th.

Please bring resolutions to your caucus, and please run to be a delegate to your Senate or Organizing Unit convention!