Daily Herald Editorial

Legislation making its way through the House and Senate this spring would overturn a four-year-old law that effectively bans new coal-fired power plants in Minnesota. The environmental advisability of building coal-burning plants is debatable. What’s more clear is that when it comes to energy, this year’s Legislature does not have a coherent plan, although one is badly needed.

As they seem to be doing with the state’s budget crisis, lawmakers are taking pot shots at existing laws and plans, moves that may look good to some of their constituents and other supporters, but which don’t make a great deal of sense unless they are part of a greater overall plan. A law that would ease the path for new coal-fired plants leaves lots of questions about state energy policy. Among them: What should Minnesota do to reduce carbon emissions? What is to become of the state’s push for wind energy growth? And where do plans to end a ban on nuclear plants fit into all of this?

Lawmakers who are tinkering with energy laws and plans just might have some vision for all of this, but they have utterly failed to articulate that vision. Our guess, however, is that there is no coherent plan.

As with budgeting, education and many other area of government policy, the Legislature could do the state a real service by thinking more about the big picture before addressing individual pieces of the puzzle.