Glad to see that some grownups are getting real about nuclear energy:
Ramping up the pressure to repeal a 15-year-old ban on building more nuclear power plants in Minnesota, union officials, business leaders and politicians — including U.S. Reps. Tim Walz, a Democrat, and Erik Paulsen, a Republican — urged the Legislature on Tuesday to lift the moratorium.
“Everything must be on the table,” Walz said.
Hear hear. Honestly, one of the most nonsensical positions taken by the environmentalist crowd has been their rigid opposition to any expansion of nuclear energy in Minnesota. It’s all well and good to talk about harnessing wind power (a la Matt Entenza) but if we’re actually going to take real measures to curb global warming—without knocking our standard of living down a few decades in the process—nuclear power is really our only option. I’m not a huge fan of Erik Paulsen for obvious reasons, but I have to commend both Representative Walz and him for taking this sound policy position.
I too am a little confused by the extremely conservative voting record that freshmen-Rep. Erik Paulsen has amassed in the 111th Congress—he has voted with the Republic Party 91% of the time—especially considering the very marginal district that he’s currently representing. Obama won the 3rd Congressional District by six points last November and the district has been trending Democratic for the past eight years as the inner-ring suburbs of Minneapolis continue to vote more and more like Minneapolis-proper.
Paulsen would really do well to exercise a little more caution. While he won by a convincing margin of 7.5%, I think Paulsen’s victory was something of a fluke. Ashwin Madia certainly ran a much less competitive race than many were expecting. Considering that DFLers will likely control the contours of the newly redistricted congressional map in 2012, Paulsen should be wary about staking out a voting record too far to the right, as I’m sure Democrats would like nothing more than to draw him into a district (perhaps one that includes a large portion of Minneapolis) that an extremely partisan Republican would be almost certain to lose.