OMG! At second glance, this new green chip commission from Pawlenty is worse than I thought. Now let’s make this clear, Pawlenty is turning into a major problem. If he is not reminded from where he came, IE the Republican party, he may do more damage to our State’s economy than any DFLer could from the mansion on Summit.

In fact, they would drive a lot less, and so would everybody else, as part of a broad transformation of behaviors, policies and economies that a governor’s panel is weighing in an effort to blunt Minnesota’s contribution to climate change.

“The question is, ‘Can we get there and what’s it going to take?’” said Jan Callison, mayor of Minnetonka and a member of the Minnesota Climate Change Advisory Group. A reduction in driving is “one piece of a really big and complicated puzzle,” Callison added, “but one conclusion is probably that we’re going to need to change our driving habits.”

It seems the Governor has assembled a Gore-esque group of anti-capitalist anti-Liberty environutters and liberty hating suspects who want to take their green religion and socialist centralized planning and force it upon us. You see, the key to them is to put an end to you being able to drive where and when you want. Oh and especially how much you do.

The goals laid out by the panel and Governor Pawlenty scares the hell out of me.

The advisory group is a panel of more than 50 business, environmental and community leaders assembled by Gov. Tim Pawlenty to design strategies to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions — primarily carbon dioxide — by 80 percent by 2050. The group is more than halfway through nine months of brainstorming intended to produce a package of proposals for the 2008 Legislature to consider.

Because transportation contributes about 27 percent of the carbon dioxide poured into Minnesota’s atmosphere, one of the panel’s goals — a rollback in miles driven in Minnesota to 1990 levels by 2025 — could significantly reduce or even help reverse pollution trends.

That’s right folks, in the 2007 Legislative session Pawlenty gave in to the environutters and signed the DFL’s environmental bill. Now, he is planning on beating them to the punch.

The mileage-reduction goal is for a period when the metro area alone is expected to gain nearly 1 million residents. It mirrors a standard already adopted by a similar governor’s panel in Vermont but exceeds those in several other states. Callison called it “incredibly aggressive.”

But Callison and Barb Thoman, project director for the group Transit for Livable Communities and, like Callison, a member of a transportation subgroup of the governor’s panel, both noted that the goal depends on much more than just setting the parking brake. It would build on broad strategies designed in part to get people to drive less: locating jobs and people close to one another, redeveloping core cities and expanding mass transit.

That punch is actually more of the Governor proposing policies that will destroy your life as you know it. Did someone kidnap me and stick me in the Soviet Union or something?

What the heck happened to Liberty?

The transportation panel is also recommending having people pay directly for road use, parking and other transportation features whose costs are now concealed by public subsidies.

That, along with land-use changes and transit options, is critical, said University of Minnesota geography Prof. John Adams, who is involved in a parallel study on transportation and greenhouse gases. But will Minnesotans stomach driving less or paying more for the privilege?

“That’s where leadership comes in,” Adams said.

And that’s where Pawlenty comes in. You see, he feels he can look the opposition party in the eyes and stare them down and lecture them to “look at the bigger picture”. Um, Republicans are the opposition party in his eyes now, it seems. Well, I am not willing to hang that ‘Big Government picture” in my living room Mr. Governor.
This new green charter commission of pawlenty’s is a textbook case where leadership matters, but I’m not looking for someone to make it happen. I want someone to finally stand up to Governor Pawlenty from the right, and stop this lunacy. The first best choice would be from the Republican Party, but….. Next I’d look to other State wide Republicans like Sen. Coleman, but ……

Would Bachmann and Kline be willing to call the Governor out for having gone enviornutter? They do have bigger fish to fry in DC, so I doubt they could. So who will finally stand up to the Governor, and make sure he no longer defines the Republican party?

Still don’t see the need to stop the Governor?

Some suggestions from the advisory panel may not require legislation and could be enacted by state agencies, said David Thornton, assistant commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

Almost certain to emerge from the process is a “cap and trade” policy that, in tandem with limits on greenhouse gas pollution, would allow big producers of carbon dioxide, such as utilities, to buy and sell carbon credits.

Yes, you read that right, Pawlenty is going to bring carbon credits to Minnesota, and even the Legislature won’t be able to stop him (not that the DFL would want to).

Be afraid, be very afraid. Your state Government is going to be getting bigger, and is very likely to get very very powerful under the new and improved Pawlenty. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is sad to see that played out before out eyes with our own state government.

What in the heck has happened in Minnesota? Pawlenty seems to have completely gone off the envionutter cliff. Will anyone be able to stop him from dragging us all into the abyss? If Pawlenty keeps this up, not only will he destroy what is left of the Republican party by the end of his second term, but he will have been instrumental in passing their fringe leftist DFL agenda. Al Gore must be loving this.

Honestly, why doesn’t Pawlenty just propose banning limited Government and getting it over with?  This will be the biggest nanny state power grab ever.

Will anyone of his usual defenders have the courage to finally admit that this is bad, really bad? In order to save our freedom, liberty, and ability to choose how we live our lives, someone close to him needs to stand up to him. This is a partisan divide, but the key is figuring out if you’re supporting the wrong side.

The Governor is on the wrong side on these policies, are you sure you want to be standing with him anymore?

OK, I’ll leave you with a ray of hope. Ethanol was not mentioned once in this article. I guess it is not really part of the solution.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 7:19 am and is filed under A.R.O.R.A., Coleman vs Franken, Know Thy Enemy, MN 2nd - Kline, MN 6th - Bachmann, MN Governor, MN US Senate, MNGOP Reform, McPlenty, Politics, Take Your Cob and Shove it. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.