SAINT PAUL, Minn. – Senator Nick Frentz (DFL – North Mankato) today harshly criticized the federal Department of Energy’s (DOE) sudden cancellation of a $464 million investment in improving transmission lines in Minnesota and six other states.
“This is one of the worst decisions the DOE has made in many years. It means Minnesotans’ electric bills will be higher. Jobs will be lost and our energy will emit more carbon, not less,” said Senator Frentz, who Chairs the Senate Energy, Utilities, Environment and Climate Committee. “Beyond that, the costs of climate change will be even greater, and the state’s energy grid will be less reliable.”
Senator Frentz, who backed the investment as part of his effort to ensure Minnesota’s energy supply is clean, reliable and affordable, said the cancellation is one of several that targeted Minnesota this week. He also noted that this was a grant that had already been awarded – so the work that had been done to get the projects to this point is wasted, and utility customers who would get the benefit will now have to pay more. Among other things, the transmission lines would bring a large amount of low cost wind energy into Minnesota homes and businesses. The new projects would also improve reliability, which would have made power outages less common than they are now for all of the six involved states. Climate change related storm damage is costing U.S. homeowners and businesses hundreds of billions of dollars a year. This cancellation stops the deployemnet of carbon free energy, at a time when we need more of that energy, not less.
“This will hit Minnesotans in the pocketbook,” said Senator Frentz. “At a time when Minnesotans are already struggling to deal with the higher costs, this is the wrong move at the wrong time. Clean, reliable and affordable energy is critical to Minnesota families and our state’s economic future. By making these unwise cuts in our investments that were approved to significantly improve energy transmission lines, the DOE is putting us at future risk of the debilitating brownouts that have hurt Texas and put that state’s residents in danger. These cuts are simply wrong.”
Senator Frentz said the energy cuts to Minnesota are part of a targeted $7.5 billion cut to projects across the country. The $464 million project to invest in Minnesota transmission lines was the largest of 12 cancelled state projects that had already been approved.
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