An Open Letter to "Fresh Energy"

Subject:

Re: Moratorium on coal plants

Note: "Fresh Energy" is a "front organization" for big-business, the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party and the Minnesota AFL-CIO and Change to Win. "Fresh Energy" works in collaboration with all the other big-business financed think-tanks which seek to control and manipulate organizations like those in the Minnesota Environmental Partnership and the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability.

I find it rather ironic “Fresh Energy” now calls for a complete moratorium on coal-fired electric generating plants in the fight against global warming; but your organization did not lift one little finger to bring the Hydro Dam powering the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant under public ownership to save two-thousand jobs and insure that this plant would begin being used as a cheap source of energy by people in the Twin Cities... why your organization never proposed that instead of the Ford Motor Company being allowed to sell-off excess power generated by the hydro dam to Excel, that this power instead be provided to light the public schools and other public institutions for free, just like Ford received free power for its operations, I do not understand… maybe you can explain. This could have meant a very substantial reduction in property taxes with all the money saved by public schools.

In fact, your organization, and your “coalition partners,” have been no place to be seen in the struggle to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant even though it is a model of “green manufacturing.” If every manufacturing facility of this size was as “green” as the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant we would not even be discussing global warming… yet, “Fresh Energy” and your coalition partners remain silent through it all.

I think your organization, Fresh Energy, is bogus.

In fact, it appears to me you raise demands you know are impossible to meet--- a moratorium on new coal fired plants--- as long as the quest for maximum profits is the goal and objective of production.

I also find it very strange, that along with calling for a moratorium on coal fired plants, you do not suggest any solution to rising energy costs for most people. This I find especially interesting since you are well aware that what you are proposing would force our electric bills up even as we are forced to conserve.

There is a solution which the foundations supporting your organization would never go along with:

Public ownership of the entire energy producing and distribution complex; a more feasible and workable solution if you are serious about having a moratorium on building coal fired plants.

I also find it very strange that your organization never mentions the fact that tax-payers are underwriting the costs of a very primitive electric distribution system… from the point of energy production until it arrives to where it will be used, as much as thirty percent of the energy is being lost--- there is your moratorium and more. But, what we have is corporations feeding at the public trough as they are wasting our resources--- I guess since these corporations are getting a free lunch they don’t mind making a pig of themselves and throwing most of the food away that they take at the self-serve buffet.

In fact, the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities assembly plant, under public ownership, could be turned to producing inexpensive vertical and horizontal wind generating equipment to power our entire state and we could be free of coal-burning power plants in a few years. These inexpensive wind generators could replace every farm fence post in Minnesota and placed along our roads and highways and even on bridges without any harm to the environment or the scenery. Solar units and water equipment could also be produced all in the same plant… yet, your “coalition partners” are proposing the demolition of this plant… do you not have any concept of the “carbon footprint” involved in the construction (and unwarranted destruction) of a huge plant like this?

I would suggest that you have a little discussion with the Ford Site Planning Committee and Task Force… and your coalition partners at the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability and the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party.

It might not hurt to put a halt to the war machine, either, which is creating quite the “carbon footprint.”

I really think your philanthropist funders have you pointed on the wrong track… but then again I notice many of the donors are Excel CEO’s and run like a Who’s Who of the Minnesota State Chamber of Commerce and the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers--- no doubt looking for a nice fat tax-write-off as they try to derail the movement for real energy reform.

Even the media, including public radio seems to be beholden to the corporate interests in the energy industry… just take radio station KAXE up here in northern Minnesota… the Blandin foundation and Excel give them a few bucks and it is like the pollution from their plant north of Grand Rapids doesn’t even exist… it just vanishes mysteriously into the clouds… and when the plant manager is asked what is coming out of the smokestacks he will tell you, “Nothing to worry about, just some harmless water vapor.”

Perhaps this entire matter can be discussed by the “Progressives for Obama,” too.

I find it equally interesting that those who had been talking about holding a “Conference on Dis-Investment” at the University of Minnesota canceled their conference quickly after becoming concerned the issue of saving the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant and the hydro dam along with two-thousand jobs would become the central issue of the conference.

Really, I find it thoroughly and completely hypocritical that “Fresh Energy” would call for a moratorium on building coal-burning electric generating plants without even considering any of the alternative proposals brought forward here.

I await a response from “Fresh Energy.”

Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

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