Local bigwigs celebrated a climate infrastructure milestone late last month. KARE-11 TV reported,
New sustainable aviation fuel facility in Minnesota will start producing 30 million gallons per year for MSP flights.
Think “renewable” jet fuel, made from agricultural products rather than crude oil. The location was the Flint Hills Pine Bend oil refinery in Rosemount. It brought out the big names,
Friday morning [July 24], business leaders and elected officials held a kickoff event to celebrate the new Sustainable Aviation Fuel Blending Facility…
…Several top-level elected officials across both parties support this idea of growing the industry in Minnesota and becoming a global leader in SAF, including Governor Tim Walz and two of the top gubernatorial candidates, Lisa Demuth and Amy Klobuchar.
Delta Airlines put out a press release and sent its president to the event. U.S. Rep. Brad Finstad was there. The KARE-11 report includes a quote from Sen. Klobuchar. She and Walz appear to have forgotten fact the State of Minnesota is suing the Pine Bend refinery (by name) for the alleged tort of “climate fraud.”
Notable by his apparent absence was state Attorney General Keith Ellison, who filed the lawsuit back in June 2020 in state court in Ramsey County. The document reads like an artifact from a lost age.
Over the past six years, the case file has accumulated some 258 documents. Like Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, a handful of court hearings take place each year, with four (4) lawyers from the Attorney General’s office actively working the case. The last hearing took place on July 2.
Earlier this year, the state lawsuit generated a counter-suit by the feds.
You, the taxpayer, pay for the state’s lawyers. You, the energy consumer, pay for the refinery’s lawyers. How are we better off?
The refinery is one of the state’s largest employers. This pointless lawsuit must rank somewhere on the list.
If your really do care about climate change, it would seem that the positive reinforcement on display last month at the ribbon-cutting would do more good than endless lawfare.