Which Side Are They On? The 2015 Minnesota Legislative Scorecard
On October 1st, Clean Water Action released a scorecard for the 2015 Minnesota legislative session, scoring every state legislator on their votes on significant environmental bills. The scorecard reveals both disappointingly low environmental scores from some legislators and notable scores from environmental champions. More than half (57.2%) of our Minnesota legislature received a failing environmental score for the 2015 legislative session.
The scorecard focused on votes about clean energy policy, keeping plastic microbeads out of our water, the Omnibus Environmental and Natural Resources Finance bill, the Toxic Free Kids Act, and more.
Key findings:
- Senate Democrats (74.5%) on average scored higher than Senate Republicans (19.5%) while House Democrats (92.6%) significantly outperformed the House Republicans (14.5%).
- 14 members of the Senate and 49 members of the House of Representatives earned perfect scores (100%), all of them members of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, including Senate Assistant Majority Leader, Katie Sieben (54, DFL).
Some legislators also scored shockingly low. 63 House Republicans scored below 15%, with both the Speaker of the House, Kurt Daudt (31A, R) and Majority Leader, Joyce Peppin (34A, R) scoring an abysmal 0%.
The Minnesota legislature is failing to get the job done, but it’s not too late to change course. When the legislative session convenes in 2016, it’s critical that constituents let their Minnesota lawmakers know the environment is important to voters. Minnesota needs pro-environment legislators who will take initiative and pass environmental policies that will benefit Minnesota for generations to come.
- Read the complete scorecard and find out how your legislators performed.
Restoring the Great Lakes
Discussions focused on how to solve the many problems facing the Great Lakes, including: expanding green infrastructure in the Great Lakes basin to save money while cleaning up our water; stopping the spread of invasive species in the lakes with new and innovative solutions; and advancing policies and best practices to significantly reduce agricultural pollution that can cause toxic algae blooms.
The conference was held in collaboration with Great Lakes Week. Attendees included U.S. and Canadian environmental agencies, the International Joint Commission, the Great Lakes Bi-National Network and the Great Lakes Commission. Government representatives, industry leaders, tribal members, environmental consultants, and academic institutions gathered under one roof to network and collaborate on critical, urgent issues facing the Great Lakes.
Clean Water Action is a founding member of the Great Lakes Bi-National Network, created to help coordinate Great Lakes protection and restoration work with Canadian allies. The conference and Great Lakes Week were a great success and Clean Water Action will be working to implement many of the policy strategies to protect and restore the Great Lakes.
Recycling Event Collects More Than 5,000 Pounds of Electronics
On a sunny Saturday in September, Golden Valley residents showed up with broken smart phones, old laptops, stereos, and other electronics for Clean Water Action’s electronic recycling event. In just four hours, more than 5,100 pounds of electronics were collected for refurbishment or recycling by local recycler TechDump.
Electronics are the fastest growing municipal waste stream in the U.S. and can pollute water when disposed of improperly. While most people are aware of the hazardous heavy metals in electronics, many do not know they also contain toxic chemicals like phthalates and flame retardants. People who dropped off electronics learned about these hazards from Clean Water Action volunteers and staff, and signed postcards asking the nation’s top electronics retailer, Best Buy, to remove toxic flame retardants from products sold in its stores.
As part of the Mind the Store Campaign, Clean Water Action is working to get Best Buy to address the chemicals in the electronics they sell. Best Buy has taken some action by removing flame retardants from their brand of televisions. Clean Water Action is challenging them to continue this progress by getting toxic chemicals out of additional products.
Congress threatens Minnesota’s Ability to Protect Health, Environment
Thirty nine years. That’s how long ago the federal law responsible for regulating chemicals was updated. In coming weeks Congress will consider two bills to change how the U.S. assesses the safety of chemicals. While an update is long overdue, the process proposed by Congress only evaluates a small number of chemicals over a long period of time.
More than 80,000 chemicals need to be assessed for safety by the EPA, but the number and pace of chemicals assessed by both bills (10 chemicals per year under the stronger House bill) means it will take generations for the EPA to assess the safety of chemicals under the proposed schedules.
Despite decades of inaction at the federal level, states have led the way in protecting public health and the environment from toxic chemicals. In Minnesota, Clean Water Action has helped pass nine laws in the last eight years to protect families from hazardous chemicals in consumer products. The ability for states to lead on this issue is preserved by the House bill, but is under jeopardy in the Senate.
The Senate bill restricts a state’s ability to act on public health threats in a timely manner and ties the hands of state government while the EPA is reviewing a chemical. We are working with our national partners to strengthen the Senate bill so that states retain their ability to protect families and the environment from toxic chemicals.