The Minnesota Legislature has introduced a new pathway to BAN your car and your fuel!

Companion bills—Senate File 2584 and House File 2602—are making their way through the legislative process and have already cleared some committees on their way to floor votes and the governor’s desk.

What this legislation does:

• Increases prices at the pump—both gas and diesel—for all Minnesotans in the near-term.

• Raises gas prices by as much as 45 cents per gallon by 2030 and by more than 61 cents per gallon by 2040.

• Completely bans liquid fuels by 2050—EVEN BIOFUELS, because they aren’t carbon-neutral.

This is just another EV mandate and vehicle ban in another form.

This policy is even more aggressive than California’s fuel regulations.

What’s more: This harmful and expensive policy would have negligible positive impact—eliminating all 36.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions emitted by the transportation sector in Minnesota would reduce future global temperatures by only 0.00095 degrees Celsius by the year 2100.

Learn more and see how you can help at www.nocarmandates.com.

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References:

https://www.americanexperiment.org/progressives-in-st-paul-reintroduce-california-fuel-standards-that-will-fuel-gas-station-inflation

https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/business-inputs/article/2023/03/13/minnesota-ag-biofuels-groups-say

No Loan for you: Southwest Public Policy Institute Publishes New Report

Southwest Public Policy Institute recently published a report detailing the negative consequences of restricting access to credit in New Mexico.

Short-term, small-dollar loans offer respite to many Americans who are under-banked or unbanked, especially when they are in desperate need of cash. Despite this, New Mexico lawmakers have restricted access to these alternative forms of credit, and many New Mexicans cannot obtain quick credit when they need it most.

The report by Southwest Public Policy Institute highlights a member of the Albuquerque community as he unsuccessfully attempts to access credit in this new, restrictive environment.

Read the full report here.

Why California’s EV Policies Don’t Work for Minnesotans

After the recent elections, the DFL Party controls the Minnesota House and Senate and the Governor’s office. Creating a 100% carbon-free Minnesota by 2040 is one of the DFL’s main priorities. To achieve this ambitious goal, policymakers are looking to copy and adopt some of California’s most extreme environment and vehicle policies right here in Minnesota. One of those policies includes banning the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. It’s crucial for Minnesotans to understand how this California-made rule would impact them and their families.

For one thing, electric vehicles are costly for the average Minnesota family. With inflation rates and costs rising exponentially this past year, it isn’t easy to budget another significant expense. Today, the lowest-cost electric car is still around $15,000 more than the cheapest gas car. Drivers on a fixed income who can't afford EV prices should be able to choose which car best fits their needs and finances.

Read the full opinion piece here.

Domestic Policy Caucus Appears on The Jack Tomczak Show to Discuss Interest Rate Caps

Kent Kaiser, secretary/treasurer of Domestic Policy Caucus, appeared on The Jack Tomczak Show to discuss House File 290 and interest rate caps on short-term, small-dollar loans.

House File 290 is an attempt by Minnesota legislators to cap interest rates at 36 percent for short-term, small-dollar loans. This would seriously restrict Minnesotans’ ability to access credit and would force many Minnesotans into desperate situations.

Listen to the full interview here: https://omny.fm/shows/northern-alliance-radio-jack-tomczak/02-04-23-hr-2

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Pursues Solar Sovereignty Through Economic Development

In the Dakotas, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has made history with the success of an interesting organization, the Indigenous Environmental Institute (IEI). Founded by a group of determined individuals, the IEI has set out to help build solar panels on reservations to promote sustainable energy practices and to establish “solar sovereignty,” which is an important component of economic development. 

One of the co-founders of the IEI, Cody Two Bears, a tribal council representative for the community of Cannon Ball, has said that the organization's mission is to protect the land and give their people access to sovereignty by creating their own energy. IEI's goal is to share their successes and help other tribes’ economic development as well.

The IEI's efforts illustrate how renewable energy can benefit not only the environment but also the economy. Their success in the Dakotas is a powerful example of what can be accomplished when tribes are given the opportunity to take control of their own resources and pursue economic sovereignty through technological development.

340B Program Expansion Threatens Rural Healthcare

Pharmacies are essential to the communities they serve. Yet throughout America, rural independent drugstores are struggling.

This month, the Rural Policy Research Institute reported this troubling fact: The number of independently owned retail pharmacies declined by 16 percent in the United States between 2003 and 2021. According to NPR radio, that has contributed to the appearance of what are called “pharmacy deserts” across rural America—areas where residents must drive more than 15 minutes to a drugstore. A 2021 report issued by Good Rx called “Mapping Credit Deserts” provides a graphic representation of the counties having insufficient access to a drugstore.

Disparities in access to care and health outcomes for rural, underserved, and minority populations have long been significant issues. Any policy that could further restrict the availability of medicines to these populations—or force them to travel farther to obtain them—needs to take the issue of health equity into consideration.

Unfortunately, there has been a massive expansion in recent years of a program that exacerbates the pharmacy desert phenomenon.

The program, known as 340B after a section of the 1992 federal law containing it, has grown by leaps and bounds in just the past few years.

Here’s how the program works: Hospitals and pharmacies are allowed to buy prescription drugs at a big discount, as mandated by the law, and they are reimbursed by insurance companies—and by Medicare and Medicaid—at the full price of the drugs.

The law was meant to help low-income people afford their medicines. Unfortunately, “The financial benefits of the 340B discounts are accruing almost entirely to hospitals, clinics, and physicians; and patients’ out-of-pocket costs and total cost of care are being increased,” according to a 2013 JAMA article. Indeed, the profit has become a major revenue source for for-profit healthcare providers.

340B has bestowed more and more economic power to the already-monstrous, national chain pharmacies that have driven so many local, mom-and-pop pharmacies out of business over the past several years. It creates an economic environment in which incentives encourage consolidation of healthcare systems, put healthcare farther out of reach of rural Americans, and imperil the ability of underserved Americans to receive the medications they need. All this, while also lining the pockets of big healthcare systems and giant chain pharmacies. Meanwhile, it does little or nothing to reduce healthcare costs, which is what everyone really wants. Indeed, it probably increases costs while resulting in poorer health outcomes.

That’s why the Domestic Policy Caucus is urging Members of Congress and state officials to oppose 340B expansion and refocus the policy on its original intent of lowering the price of medicines for underserved Americans and achieving health equity.

Loan rate caps are a bad idea

Recently, an initiative by an activist group seeking to cap annual interest rates on consumer loans at 36% failed to make the ballot in Michigan. Despite claiming to collect more than 575,000 signatures and submitting nearly 400,000 of them to the Secretary of State’s office, the Bureau of Elections concluded that fewer than 275,000 were valid – well below the 340,047-signature threshold needed to put the question on the ballot.

This is good news for Michigan consumers, especially those who have difficulty accessing credit and thus rely on alternative financial services to make ends meet when an emergency expense arises. It’s also good news for the many consumers who can access credit and use alternative financial services because they’re faster easier and more efficient than what are considered “traditional” loans.

Read more here.

Payday loan limits are misguided

Late last year, the so-called “Michiganders for Fair Lending” launched a ballot initiative that would do anything but make lending fairer in Michigan. They’ve named this monstrosity the “Michigan Payday Loan Interest Rate Cap Initiative,” which would likely drive Michigan lenders out of business, harming working-class Michigan residents in the process.

To understand the harm this would cause, one must understand the people who use these products. Payday loans and other short-term loans are small parts of our financial system that help consumers who have seasonal income or who don’t have access to emergency funds, such as savings accounts, loans from banks, home equity loans and 401(k) loans.

Read more here.

Bizarre election bill, SB2271, must be defeated

Originally Published in the Minot Daily News, 02/20/21

I think we can all agree that transparency is an important core principle of the American election system. Anything that gives the impression that something is being hidden creates doubt in the process and in the results.

That’s why I’m especially concerned about a bill moving through the North Dakota Legislature right now. SB2271 would require the state’s presidential vote count to be kept secret until after the Electoral College meets (about seven weeks after the November election).

Can you even imagine the chaos and consternation that SB2271 would create? Just think back to the last election, when some states stopped counting ballots on Election Day and picked back up the next morning: Even by having to wait a day or two for vote totals, people became suspicious that something nefarious was happening behind the scenes to alter the vote count.

Millions of Americans were frustrated with how the 2020 election was run. Blocking ballot counters from public view, not allowing challengers to see ballots, allowing late votes to arrive in unmarked boxes: These incidents caused furor and raised the specter of fraud. If you think the “stop the steal” reaction to what happened on election night raised emotions, think of what keeping the vote totals secret could do.

Accuracy and integrity are two pillars of a strong election system, along with ballot access and voter privacy. All four pillars must be in balance for the election system to be as strong as it can be. SB2271 would throw the balance completely out of whack.

Who could be sure of the accuracy of an election result without vote totals? Who could have confidence in the integrity of the handling of ballots, the counting of votes, or the reporting of results if there were no numbers against which to verify the process?

If secrecy of the actual vote count were successfully maintained at local voting places under SB2271, then the North Dakota State Canvassing Board would receive the secret election counts from local voting places, add them up in secret, and keep the local and statewide counts secret until after the Electoral College met. It would be impossible for any watchdog group, candidate, political party, media outlet, or ordinary citizen to compare the secretly computed statewide vote recorded with what happened on Election Day at local voting places.

But let’s face it: There’s no way vote totals would remain secret. SB2271’s restrictions on releasing vote totals would apply only to public officials. Someone-a candidate, political party, media outlet, or other-would figure a way to release the vote totals. And that “someone,” no matter who it was, would be a lot less credible than a public official. Do we really want an election system where results of suspicious origin are circulated by messengers of questionable authority? Haven’t we seen well enough what happens when people doubt the legitimacy of the presidential election results?

Bills almost identical to SB2271 were defeated in the South Dakota Senate

— http://sdlegislature.gov/Session/Bill/11895 – by a 32-1 vote in 2020, rejected unanimously by a New Hampshire House committee

— http://gencourt.state.nh.us/bill–status/bill–status.aspx?lsr=2557&sy=2020&sortoption=&txtsessionyear=2020&txtbillnumber=HB1531 – in 2020, and died in committees in the Mississippi House and Senate already in 2021.

North Dakota would be wise also to reject the bizarre idea of keeping election results secret.

US reforms should help the financially vulnerable

The Domestic Policy Caucus appeared in the Financial Times with an op-ed.

Your article says that US president Joe Biden has tapped Rohit Chopra to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("Battle looms over subprime lending regulation under Biden," Inside Business, February 9).

As you report, Chopra has "spoken out strongly against what he sees as predatory lending practices, in areas from education finance to payday loans". Now activists will be pressing Chopra on a host of these financial reforms and he will probably want to satisfy them with swift and bold action.

I think we can all agree that a government agency like the CFPB should work for consumers.

Read more here.