This is a short version of a complex answer to the many questions I’m getting. Let me begin by saying none of these issues directly affect my district but they affect my state.
Mining iron is what brought great amounts of revenue to Northern Minnesota and it is our minerals in the steel that built America. Before mining we were loggers and fur traders. Our outstanding ability to evolve will see us continue to be a leader in innovation. My labor friends assure me we have 100 years of iron left and while I continue to support responsible taconite mining practices, I want to start working now on what our great-grandchildren will do for work on the Range.
These issues are too pulled apart by both the labor and environmental lobbies. The existing Enbridge line 3 is a hazard to the health and safety of the communities it runs through. However the plan to replace it is too feeble to satisfy these problems. I have yet to be convinced the new line is the answer. I don’t trust Enbridge as a company, nor any company that makes a profit off of Minnesotan labor only to hoard the earnings somewhere else after the ground and our bodies are spent. My father worked as a logger for the companies that cleared the way for our fiber optic internet cable lines, that is until the jobs dried up and the company turned their back on the workers. This is the same issue I take with the proposed copper nickel mine near the Boundary Waters. While copper and nickel are vital to many of our electronics, the corporations in charge of these mines are not ones we should trust blindly.
I’m here for the laborers and citizens of Minnesota not the corporations or the PACs.
Joshua Fike for SD32 