Al Franken's Green Jobs tour

About 100 people gathered at Al Franken's campaign headquarters for a green jobs event. The doors opened at 1:00pm and Al was supposed to speak at 2:00. However, the room was packed by 1:45, so Al stepped in and joked around for a while. Staff member Andy Barr played straight man as Al was his own warm-up act.

The event was supposed to have been outside at the North Mississippi Park in north Minneapolis, but the forecast of cold, inclement weather forced them to move it indoors. "Unfortunately, we couldn't get the solar car in the office so we can't show you it. I suggested that they make a collapsible solar car for such situations. I hope they take my suggestion."

"It's so great to get out meet people," Al said. "Paul Wellstone always said that touch means so much. He thought it was so important to touch people. He was a hugger. So I'm out touching the lives of people, shaking their hands, hearing their stories. Touch does mean so much. Maybe not for Dick Cheney. I don't think we want him touching people. He seems to prefer shooting them anyway."

Al stepped out a few minutes before 2:00 then returned after a few minutes and started the program.

"We feel the cost when we see our trade deficit ballooning to nearly $800 million last year – with oil imports alone accounting for 35% of that," Al began.

"We feel the cost when we look around our state and don’t see more wind turbines popping up in Southwestern Minnesota, don’t see plug-in hybrid electric cars being built at the Ford plant in St. Paul, don’t see inter-city rail linking our communities."

"And we definitely feel the cost when we see other countries taking advantage of our failures. Right now, Japan is the world’s leader in solar energy. Denmark gets 20% of its electricity from wind power. And Iceland provides 100 percent of its energy production from clean energy resources."

Al talked a bit about all the things he'd seen on his week-long green jobs tour.

They went to Great River Energy as they turned on a new wind turbine. They toured Green Energy's LEED building.

They also toured a LEED school in Zimmerman. One child told Al that he didn't have to use his inhaler for his asthma as much because the air in his school was so much cleaner. Al also noted that absenteeism is down as well.

"LEED is not the kind of conservation you envision from the past," Al said. "It's not Jimmy Carter wearing a cardigan and turning the thermostat down to 55 degrees. It's about wasting less energy and living better."

Al wants to retrofit houses and suggested we ought to retrofit foreclosed houses to make them LEED houses. Give them efficient windows, furnace and doors. Make these houses desirable. The builders say it can be done fairly cheaply. Doing this would be a huge shot in the arm for the economy.

"I visited a LEED house built in Arden Hills," Al said. "The carpet was made from recycled plastic pop bottles. You can't imagine what it would feel like. It was amazingly soft.

"Actually, the papers have a picture of me on all fours, feeling the carpet," he joked. "Okay ... actually ... they have a lot of pictures. You'll see them in the paper tomorrow."

Then he got serious.

"I want to power Minnesota homes and businesses with renewable energy that comes from Minnesota. Wind energy, solar energy, biofuels – you know, Al Gore says that there’s no silver bullet to address global warming, but there is silver buckshot. I want to make those homes and buildings green. We should retro-fit foreclosed homes, make tax credits available to low-income homeowners so they can retro-fit their homes, and make every federal building we build carbon-neutral. I want to invest in transportation options like light rail, commuter rail, inter-city rail, and plug-in hybrid electric cars, made in Minnesota factories by Minnesota workers. And whatever the next innovation is, I want it to be discovered and developed at the University of Minnesota, not the University of Stockholm, so I want to invest in research and development."

"To pay for new investments," he continued. "I’ll support a cap-and-trade system that cuts carbon emissions by 80% by the year 2050. The proceeds of that system, combined with ending the subsidies for the big oil companies, will allow us to launch an Apollo program to invest in new sources of renewable energy and energy efficiency, as well as continue to develop and commercialize the technologies we’ve already discovered. These are common-sense, win-win proposals for Minnesota. We can finally end our dependence on foreign oil, address the climate crisis, create jobs here in Minnesota, and provide Minnesota families with lower prices at the pump and better values when they open their monthly electric bill."

It should be noted that Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) has opposed cap and trade legislation in the past. The Bush Administration has led our country into a recession and Norm has voted for tax cuts for the wealthy and blank checks for the occupation of Iraq. Norm hasn't voted to build the new, green economy. He's beholden to Big Oil, Big Coal and the Nuclear Lobby. Al wants to create those jobs in Minnesota and export the products and technology.