New vehicle emissions rule clears major hurdle
The Clean Cars Minnesota rule would apply to new cars sold in the state beginning with model year 2025. GOP lawmakers are still working to stop it or slow it down Author: John Croman Updated: 12:31 AM CDT May 8, 2021
ST PAUL, Minn. Gov. Tim Walz won a victory Friday in his push bring tougher vehicle emissions standards to this state, beginning with the 2025 model year.
An administrative law judge ruled the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency s rulemaking process for the Clean Cars Minnesota standards complied with state law, and the new rules will reduce greenhouse gases and air pollution here.
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More electric vehicles could soon be for sale on Minnesota car lots after an administrative law judge ruled Friday that the Walz administration can set new emissions standards without the OK of lawmakers.
The ruling by Judge Jessica Palmer-Denig clears the way for state regulators to adopt the new clean car rules that would require manufacturers to deliver more electric vehicles and hybrids to the state. It does not, however, resolve a standoff with Republican lawmakers that could still upend the administration s plans.
Republican lawmakers have opposed the new standards since Gov. Tim Walz first announced plans in 2019 to have the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) adopt them. Nearly two dozen Republican state senators and auto dealers from around the state argued to Palmer-Denig that new emissions standards should come from the Legislature, not the MPCA.
EPA botched oversight of permits for PolyMet mine, internal investigation finds Jennifer Bjorhus, Star Tribune
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) botched its oversight of permits for Minnesota s first copper-nickel mine, according to the findings of an internal investigation.
The report from the EPA s inspector general, released Wednesday, describes a flawed review of two permits issued for the $1 billion mine that Toronto-based PolyMet Mining Corp. wants to build near Babbitt and Hoyt Lakes.
The findings add more regulatory uncertainty to the stalled mine. Many of the permits issued for the mine have been stayed or are under review. And in light of the new EPA review, environmentalists are now calling on Minnesota regulators to revoke the mine s water pollution permit.
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Proposed new water standards aren t for drinking water.
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Duluth News Tribune | 7:00 am, Apr. 18, 2021 ×
On its surface, the proposal seems alarming and misguided. What does the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency mean it wants to lower some standards for water quality in the Land of 10,000 Lakes?
Relax. The agency isn’t suggesting touching any standards for our drinking water. Those lofty benchmarks for purity ensuring that Minnesota remains “the land of sky blue waters,” as the Hamm’s brewery in St. Paul used to boast in song can be expected to remain intact.
Rather, the MPCA’s proposed changes would apply to waters used by industries like mining and for things like irrigation and livestock. More specifically, the proposal would remove numerical standards in favor of narrative standards for conductivity, hardness, sodium, and bicarbonates in waters meant for industry and irrigation. And they would allow for higher amounts of chloride, alkali