On the DM&E: "Buying a U.S. senator just doesn’t get you what it used to"
Sam Hurst is a filmmaker who lives in Rapid City, S.D., and writes regular columns for the Rapid City Journal. The following column appeared Sunday, March 3.
South Dakotans "would rather try to con the hardworking taxpayers of California and Michigan into hauling 18th century energy on a 19th century railroad to 20th century utilities than invest in our own 21st century assets. We don’t lack power. We lack imagination."The rest is here.
South Dakota needs to have a new energy strategy
By Sam Hurst
Kevin Schieffer and his pol pal John Thune got whacked last week. They didn’t see it coming. Sen. Thune’s re-write of federal railroad loan regulations to grease the track for a $2.3 billion public loan to the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad was nothing if not audacious, especially considering that DM&E is one of the most unsafe railroads in the nation, is deeply in debt, and offered no visible means to repay the loan.
In the wake of the loan refusal, Thune describes himself as the victim of a vast conspiracy that dared to question DM&E’s entitlement to sup at the public trough.
The senator told reporters on Wednesday that his opponents, especially the black-hearted Mayo Clinic, were out to get him. That’s the political equivalent of slinking home from school with an “F” in math and telling your parents: “The teacher doesn’t like me.” Buying a U.S. senator just doesn’t get you what it used to.
The decision of federal railroad administrator Joseph Boardman was elegantly simple: The DM&E loan represented “an unacceptably high risk for federal taxpayers.” It was language that would make any self-respecting, fiscally conservative Republican stand up and cheer.
Labels: DM and E, Herseth, John Thune
Powered by Blogger
3 Comments:
Quick question : Does South Dakota have exclusive rights to the wind ? Minnesota politicians are always blowing hot air about harnessing the wind, but at the same time making sure that the ethanol industry gets tax subsidies.
Note the number of comments to Hurst's article that attack ethanol subsidies but Hurst never mentioned ethanol in his article.
Minnesota needs to look at fuel cell technology in addition to other alternative ideas. FYI - the US Senate will have hearings on Tuesday on CAFE standards.
As an aside, anyone wanna bet that this was Sen. Thune's worst week in office ... first the DM&E and now Bush is looking at Brazil to help meet his goal of 35 billion gallons of ethanol by 2017. America cannot produce that much ... (and I don't know if consumers can afford that much corn being diverted away from other uses) ... so Bush may have to look at changing the 53 cent a gallon import tariff that is on ethanol. Lucky Gil Gutknecht, who must be laughing in his politcal graveyard, since he pushed for DM&E and opposed reducing the tariffs.
Short-sighted politicians are the bane of our existance.
Ethanol is negative efficient (i.e. it takes 1.5 gallons of ethanol to produce 1 gallon of ethanol, which is why ethanol plants run on gas or coal) and because of this requires a subsidy. Ethanol is not self-sustaining, but things are getting better. My wife's cousin is a corn-breeded with Monsanto and the negative efficiency gap is narrowing, but still several years off.
As for short-sighted pols, exhibit A is the new renewable energy standard law passed last week. To use the arguement I have heard ad-nauseum over the DM&E loan 'if it were such a good deal, the private sector would take care of it'. Why, then, do we have to mandate renewable energy standards? Why not just let the private energy market dictate whether or not we should have a renewable standard and at what level? That argument worked in the DM&E loan case, we should apply the same philosophy across the board...unless we are being politically expedient to prove our point.
You are correct - short-sighted politicians and their short-sighted policies are the bane of our existence.
I'm not surprised by Mayo and the Rochester Coalition's attack on John Thune. They're accustomed to using lies, deceit, and misinformation to get what they want. They did the same thing when they were investigated and adjudicated for "routinely and knowingly" defrauding the government. It was a 3 year investigation by the US Dept. of Justice. When news of their settlement was announced, they down- played it referring to the transgression as a difference of opinion over bookkeeping procedures. In response, the Assistant US Attorney noted "We strongly view this as a fraud case.... We don't get $6.5 Million settlements for clerical errors." The only reason they quit was because they were caught via a whistle blower lawsuit. One of their own people HAD to inform the authorities, as management wouldn't. Excuse me but I'll take Thune's moral compass over Mayo's any day.
Post a Comment
<< Home