Poison Pawlenty


Why are 3M's profits more important than my child's health?
Why does the Governor wish to poison us?....For cold hard cash?

These are simple questions the Governor needs to answer. By appointing a pollution control commissioner from a regulated industry, He is saying " your and your children's health doesn't matter".

Like most Republicans, he is always concerned that somehow environmental regulation hurts the economy. I'll remind him it is only cheaper for a company if it can move somewhere else and pollute...in other words, poison for profit. When he appointed Cheryl Corrigan as PCA commissioner, he plucked her from one of the largest chemical producers in the state, 3M. He didn't choose an environmental scientist, or someone who had experience with regulation of pollution....no; he chose someone from the very industry they were supposed to regulate. When she announced her resignation back in June, the Gov showered her with the usual honors, and then pontificated about how she had shown that pollution and job growth could be balanced.

My question is this: When did poisoning us and the natural world become part of the equation? When did it suddenly become legitimate to give people cancer, disease and death?

If I poison my neighbor and/or his family or animals, I will be subject to criminal prosecution and civil suits. If I am a regulated industry, however, somehow my needs have to be balanced against a few cases of cancer. Or rather, the owner's profits are given equal value to lives lost, which is what it really means. There is always the handwringing about lost wages of workers, which means the company will simply move somewhere it is legal to poison and kill, namely China or some other place of great desperation. In short, let us poison you, or you and many others won't have jobs.

This what the Governor and repubs in general have handed us with all their talk of the free market and trade agreements. Poison.

Back to the state issues.

The case of Pawlenty's commissioner covering up for her former employer, 3M, is well known. His general viewpoint is already stated: Government should just get out of the way of business. In short, let foxes do what they want, the chickens will be alright.

But there are other issues as well.


At the ground level, within the Department of Natural Resources, Pawlenty has done nothing except cut the budget and further the aim of one of his contributors, the Atv lobby, mainly Arctic Cat and Polaris. In February of 2005, two long time managers in the northwest were canned by commissioner Gene " the icebox" Merriam. (Merriam's sole qualifications for Dnr commissioner were being a Republican and an accounting background.) No reason was given, but within the Dnr it was common knowledge they were booted for one reason: Their refusal to let the ATV whackjobs in the northwest run hither and yon wrecking the countryside. This is a place where Arctic Cat and Polaris rule. In short, let's sacrifice the landscape for the sake of some idiots who want to churn up dirt all day. We'll can people with years of good public service protecting the land and water so that our contributors can make money and some of our lunatic supporters are happy.

There are numerous other wasy he has bs'd his way around the environment. Trying to create the wastewater fee, where every citizen paid the same no matter what income or water use was a true classic...whether an apartment renter, or an Oakdale mansion owner, we would all pay the same. Nice idea. The free market for everyone except the rich. The dance around the mercury issue, where the political pressure finally made him do something. There are more, but I don't have the patience to write them.Look it up yourself.


He has sacrificed our and our children's health for money. He has sacraficed the natural world for contributors and supporters.
He has, and will, continue to wreck the environment in exchange for money and power. So Governor, thank you for your concern ....and the poison.