Coleman KAXE interview reveals northern strategy, foretells battle over coal gas boondoggle

U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman gave an interview to Scott Hall on the KAXE morning show today in which he covered a broad range of issues. KAXE is a unique and popular independent public radio station serving most of northern Minnesota. The most interesting details came near the end after Scott asked his final question, and Coleman’s statements foretell many interesting developments.

First, here are the things that did not surprise me about Coleman’s interview:

1) When it comes to a recession and people losing their houses, he’s against it.

2) John McCain is A-OK.

3) He’s not going for any sort of universal system that involves hurting the private insurance industry. Something, something, something … rationing of care England and Canada. (Can I just add something: I have good insurance and my wife and I spent two hours in a clinic waiting room with two babies last week despite having an appointment … OK, sorry for the editorializing).

But then there were a few things that DID surprise me about Coleman’s interview:

1) When I first turned on the car radio, I caught the interview just after it had started. My first thought was, “Why is Mitt Romney on KAXE?” Then it hit me … IT WAS NORM. I can’t believe it took me that long to make the comparison.

2) Scott’s last question was about universal health care, because he said it has been the dominant topic of all of Coleman’s opponents seeking the DFL endorsement. Sen. Coleman didn’t even answer the question until pressed later.

3) Instead of talking about health care, Coleman changed the topic to ensure that he got to talk about energy before the interview was over. Coleman said that energy needs were important, he would continue to support Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Energy Project, that Franken opposed the project and was wrong to do so, and that he was working on federal legislation to pay for pipelines to sequester carbon.

Now my opposition to Excelsior is well documented (columns from Aug. 12, 2007 and Feb. 3, 2008). The half dozen or so lobbyist-lawyers and their additional hired lobbyists (I shall call them meta-lobbyists) who comprise Excelsior tout it as a jobs project that would provide clean coal energy. However, the technology is prohibitively expensive and no one will buy the power at the extremely high prices unless forced to by the government. As recently as a week and a half ago I would have considered the project to be near death for these reasons. However, Coleman indicates that he will go to all known lengths to breathe life into this boondoggle.

One of the big stumbling blocks for Excelsior has been the unfortunate reality that, while the Range is the perfect place to find government funding for just about anything, it is physically located over a large, impenetrable sheet of granite. This “clean” technology requires the carbon to be buried beneath this geological formation, which is not practical or commercially viable. Thus the only way to make this a true carbon-capture plant is to pipe the carbon to Canada or North Dakota to bury it. The cost of this is yet unknown, but a billion dollars is probably where we start on that — and that’s not even included in the current Mesaba price tag of $2.15 billion. So guys like me have always assumed that Excelsior would get stopped at the permit stage because it can’t bury the carbon as promised and can’t afford to pipe it away.

Well, this morning Coleman said that he is supporting a bill that would pay for pipelines to remove carbon from “clean coal” plants. In other words, that billion-dollar plus price tag will be picked up by you and me, the people whose power bills will go up if this boondoggle gets built. When you further consider the fact that Excelsior’s current operating budget is funded mostly by federal grants and a Iron Range Resources loan that will never be paid back, you see some unbelievable math.

Plant cost: $2.15 billion — more than half of which will be covered by federal grants and guaranteed loans; in other words, if the plant fails taxpayers absorb the risk.

Pipeline cost: $1 billion, probably more — again, funded by the taxpayers under Norm Coleman’s plan.

Further parsing this short KAXE interview, we see that Norm Coleman intends to use Excelsior, a project that somehow combines the worst elements of socialism and capitalism, to win votes from Al Franken in northern Minnesota. Franken, who is very realistic on energy policy, says rightfully he needs to learn more about the technology and project before he lends it support. He would prefer other alternatives to coal explored first, which is reasonable given the many problems with clean coal technology. Norm is going to say that Al opposes jobs for northeastern Minnesota and tout Excelsior as an example.

People, it would be cheaper, cleaner and better for our northern economy to just give 150 random Iron Rangers $60,000 a year for the next 30 years, and 1,000 more $60,000 for just one year than to build this awful excuse for an economic development project.

I’m hoping that Coleman’s weak answer on health care is all Iron Rangers need to hear to vote him out in favor of some truly innovative thinking.

PS: To all the DFLers who gave life to this project, thanks a billion. Actually, 2.15 billion. You’ve given a weak Republican incumbent who sits in Paul Wellstone’s seat a chance to steal votes in the 8th CD for a project that will help no one but the wealthy lawyers who begat it.