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U.S. Steel is officially rolling in its 5.0, with its ragtop down so its hair can blow
It’s official. U.S. Steel will invest $300 million into Keewatin Taconite, increasing taconite pellet production by more than 3.5 million. The whole project will take three years to fully implement. This also makes U.S. the big daddy steel company on the Iron Range as they now own the top two taconite operations here. PRESS RELEASEOberstar…
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Endorsements breaking for Obama
I just got word that two prominent Edwards supporters are joining the Barack Obama camp on the Iron Range. Minnesota House Majority Leader Rep. Tony Sertich (DFL-Chisholm) and U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar (also DFL-Chisholm) will endorse Obama today. Who else is on board? I only know of Rep. Tom Anzelc (DFL-Balsam) who endorsed Obama last…
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Franken vs. Coleman comes to the Range
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Where do the Edwards folks go?
The Duluth News-Tribune has an interesting Associated Press story about John Edwards supporters in Minnesota. Interesting to me is that House Majority Leader and Iron Range State Rep. Tony Sertich is holding off on picking between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I think his endorsement will carry a lot of weight on the Range, especially…
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Edwards to drop out, Range votes up for grabs
An update: The AP reports that John Edwards will drop his presidential bid today. The mad scramble is on to win over his supporters. Here on the Iron Range, many prominent Democrats who were supporting Edwards now hold a lot of influence over the Obama/Clinton race in Minnesota. I think this might turn Feb. 5…
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Pipeline? You wish.
So yesterday Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Energy Project got into another news cycle with their environmental hearing regarding the pipeline for their proposed coal gas plant near Taconite. This was a hearing about just the pipeline, which is step 18 of a 50-step process that will never get past the first step of getting the money…
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Franken in Grand Rapids today
Al Franken is in Grand Rapids today. He’ll appear with Rep. Tom Anzelc at Brewed Awakenings at 4 p.m. Three candidates are making a serious pitch for delegates in the DFL U.S. Senate race, Franken, Mike Ciresi and Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer. As I’ve posted before, I see a three-way split on the Iron Range over these…
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KeeTac Attack!
U.S. Steel will hold a press conference Friday at 2 p.m. at the Keewatin City Hall. My sources tell me the company is announcing a major expansion and environmental upgrade at its Keewatin Taconite plant, something like 3.5 million tons of additional pellet production capability. Yesterday, U.S. Steel announced that their Iron Range taconite production…
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The Caucus of the Walkus
The Minnesota caucuses are Feb. 5, joining the tidal wave of primaries and other caucuses around the country for Super Tuesday. I’ve already been getting a lot of questions about how caucuses work by people who have never done it before. The short answer is “It’s like attending a meeting.” But there is a bit…
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The reason for Obama
So this year’s election continues to fascinate me. The mojo tells me that the Republicans will nominate McCain and that the Democrats will have to do a little more soul searching before their nominee emerges. Here is my (biased) hope, that across the country people experience massive Clinton fatigue and collectively (or at least, a…
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Major taconite production increase?
U.S. Steel will hold a press conference at the Keewatin City Hall on Friday, Feb. 1. They will announce the “good news” we’ve been hearing about for a couple weeks now. I have heard talk about something like a 3.5 million ton increase in taconite pellet production at Keewatin Taconite. That’s huge, almost doubling production…
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Tepid debate at St. Paul mining hearing
I didn’t post a follow-up on the mining hearings down in St. Paul Friday. Essentially, it was a tepid debate between environmentalists and mining interests regarding nonferrous mining on the eastern Iron Range. Some old hard feelings were aired but no game-changing elements were introduced. The Duluth News-Tribune provided a rundown Saturday. The permitting process…
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Yes We Can (win Minnesota)
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Brace yourselves: ‘super’ week awaits us
Will the team from New York prevail? Will 2008 be an historic year? Who will carry the pivotal state of Arizona? Are the TV ads the best part or just a distraction from what really matters? What am I talking about? See, that’s the thing. You’ll notice that these questions work for both the upcoming…
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An important day for Iron Range mining projects
There’s a lot going on today that could impact many of the precious mineral mining and value-added iron mining projects currently in development on the Iron Range. First, this morning lawmakers are meeting with representatives of India-based Essar Global, the company that bought the Minnesota Steel project which aims to build a taconite mine and…