| For Immediate Release | For More Information Contact: |
| June 12, 2001 | Dan Wolter (651) 296-0640 |
To the editor:
A letter to the editor in the June 8 issue of The Land by Representative Al Juhnke (DFL- Willmar) attempted to paint an unfair and outright deceptive partisan picture about the fate of the biodiesel issue in the Minnesota Legislature this year.
Whether it be in Washington, DC or St. Paul, Minnesota's agricultural and rural interests have always benefitted from a strong spirit of bipartisanship and a united front from rural legislators. It appears Representative Juhnke prefers failure and finger-pointing.
Here are the facts about what happened with biodiesel in the House of Representatives. And since Representative Juhnke offered his partisan perspective, it is only fair to offer an accurate picture.
The two percent biodiesel requirement was included in an agriculture policy bill that received 55 votes in the Minnesota House. Of those votes, 30 were Republican and 25 were DFL. Forty DFLers voted against the bill and 39 Republicans. It is hard for me to understand why Representative Juhnke would maintain this is a partisan issue when more minority DFLers voted against it than Republicans. Rural DFLers from the Iron Range and Northern Minnesota abandoned biodiesel. If one wants to engage in partisan speculation, it is more appropriately suggested that DFLers sought to kill biodiesel and blame Republicans than to come together in bipartisan cooperation to pass the measure.
As is the case with so many important agricultural issues, this bill failed not on party lines, but on rural versus urban lines.
This should be a lesson that we need to do a better job of convincing people on the advantages of biodiesel. In addition to providing a critical new market for Minnesota grown soybeans, biodiesel helps the United States be less dependent on foreign oil and is good for the environment. Even those people living in the cities and suburbs of Minnesota will benefit by the hundreds of new jobs created in processing biodiesel as well.
As Speaker of the House and a farmer from Kenyon, I pledge to continue our fight and continue to educate and persuade legislators and policymakers that biodiesel is essential to our state's future. That is not accomplished by using Representative Juhnke's approach of destroying our bipartisan tradition on rural and agricultural issues for partisan political gain. Representative Juhnke's rhetoric is misleading and misguided.
Sincerely,
Steve Sviggum
Speaker of the House