Environmental justice in sulfide mining

August 16, 2019

A letter to the governor

by Steve Timmer

The authors of “Let the sunshine in” win a Spotty ™

August 14, 2019

Tom Berkelman, Arne Carlson and Janet Entzel win a Spotty ™ for their Commentary

by Steve Timmer

To my fellow tail-end Charlies:

August 10, 2019

If you had any question where you, the St. Louis River watershed, Ojibwe tribe members and landowners, City of Duluth, and environmentalists stood in the eyes of Glencore plc, well now, there is no doubt. If you had any before. Glencore met with Governor Walz and I guess he was bold enough to suggest that […]

by Steve Timmer

Minnesota’s investment follies

August 2, 2019

Word comes via the Star Tribune that Minnesota’s investment board has invested in Glencore, Antofagasta, and Enbridge. Swell. In addition to the teensy conflict of interest it presents (all are supplicants to Minnesota agencies), this makes some members of the environmental community, well, gag, on a general level. Some people are asking for divestiture. As […]

by Steve Timmer

Stauber and Emmer to save the day for Twin Metals

July 16, 2019

Take this, sulfides opponents! Members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Western Caucus, including Eighth District Representative Pete Stauber are seeking an investigation of what they’ve termed an “Obama Administration scandal-plagued land grab in northern Minnesota.” Stauber, caucus chairman Paul Gosar of Arzona, and Minnesota’s Tom Emmer, are seeking a U.S. House investigation into Obama […]

by Dan Burns

Skipping down Memory Lane with PolyMet

June 22, 2019

If you get the right pollution regulators, they are your defenders, not your regulators

by Steve Timmer

Former DNR Commish Tom Landwehr:

May 27, 2019

The fate of the headwaters of the St. Louis River is in Minnesota’s hands

by Steve Timmer

PolyMet: The readily apparent becomes wholly manifest

May 21, 2019

This is about as unsurprising as anything could be: (May 8), global mining giant Glencore moves one big step closer to owning the proposed Northern Minnesota copper-nickel venture PolyMet… Fundamentally, Glencore is a different kind of mining company than the Iron Range has dealt with in recent years. They’re enormous and fast-moving, anti-union and hard-bargaining. […]

by Dan Burns

Banking on the gullibility of voters

July 26, 2018

Senator Tina Smith has been busy backing and filling on her first legislative initiative, the odious “Smith Amendment” attached to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have lept over the courts and the pesky litigants suing PolyMet and the Forest Service over a proposed land swap. I suspect that Sen. Smith knew the deal […]

by Steve Timmer

The Annals of Muffing It

June 13, 2018

Last Friday, June 8th, Tina Smith pulled the most odious stunt of her admittedly short senatorial career. I am reluctant to call Tina Smith a senator because she never won the job in an election. She is an incumbent in only the most jocular sense. When she was appointed to the job by Governor Dayton, I […]

by Steve Timmer

Here a VAT, etc., part two

October 2, 2016

Now with an update at the foot of the story. (10/3) And a second update. (10/4) In an earlier story, I wrote about value added taxes everywhere but the US, and how they can disadvantage US business. There is much more to this story, of course. One of the first thing we must realize is what […]

by Steve Timmer

What color is your hat?

December 12, 2015

You only get to wear one color

by Steve Timmer