Bemidji Pioneer

Pentel keeps to his message in race for governor
By Brad Swenson
October 20, 2002

From urban to rural Minnesota, Ken Pentel's message remains the same -clean politics, clean environment and keep it local. The Green Party gubernatorial candidate must understand that his chances are slim to none of gaining the Governor's Mansion, falling a deep fourth with 3 percent in polls to frontrunners Roger Moe, Tim Pawlenty and Tim Penny.

But it's the message, stupid.

From Moorhead to plug alternative energy wind turbines, to Cass Lake to raise concerns over a polluted Superfund site there, to the Iron Range to discuss using taconite waste tailings for a new venture of manufacturing solar panels, Pentel keeps pushing the message.

"Our ability to develop relationships with the public around ideas that we're proposing builds confidence in what we're doing," Pentel said Saturday, as he stopped for a vegetarian lunch and specialty coffee in a downtown Bemidji cafe.

"People learn to trust us," said Pentel, who also ran for governor under the Green Party banner in 1998. Now, however, the party has major party status and the public financing that comes with it. That effort Saturday included a campaign driver in a alternative energy hybrid car.

Winning can still be done, Pentel said, alluding to Gov. Jesse Ventura who, as an Independence Party candidate in 1998, split the vote between Republicans and Democrats and won office.

"He won basically for going with the tide in a variety of things," the Minneapolis community activist said. "He was a central decision maker, we're into decentralizing political power and economic power. He supported corporate global trade, we don't - we support local self-reliance in our planning."

Ventura portrayed a violent image as a problem solver, as a Navy SEAL and a professional wrestler, Pentel said. "We're generally into non-violence, which is counter to society. He was also anti-Earth - his policies never reflected the restoration of the Earth, and the dominant economy is still into 'commodifying' and throwing away into landfills and incinerators our resources."

The hidden costs

The public hasn't been educated on the hidden costs with such a policy, which is the message the Greens want portrayed.

"In a number of areas, we're not safe to the dominant interests, but to the general public, we're starting to resonate," Pentel said, "and we're seeing results."

More Green Party candidates are running for office, and several have won posts in Minneapolis, he said. The number of affiliate chapters have grown from three four years ago to 20 now, including the Headwaters Green Party in Bemidji. Nationally, Green Party membership has grown 27 percent in the past year.

"People's democracy is the goal here," Pentel said, plugging his campaign favorites of declaring Election Day a holiday so that people can learn of candidates and vote, and to allow instant runoff voting where people can rank their choices. Such a move would give third parties more power.

Pentel met Saturday afternoon with members of the Leech Lake Reservation Department of Natural Resources to get a briefing on federal Superfund efforts at the former St. Regis site in Cass Lake, which was found to have levels of dioxin affecting fish.

Pentel said there are 1,200 Superfund sites in Minnesota alone, and hot spots include the Minnesota River which has yet to recover, plus waters affected by animal wastes.

As governor, he would force polluters to pay the hidden costs of their pollution and work to prevent pollution in the first place.

""Either we start adding the honest costs under my administration or I'm just going to start really cracking down with hard-nose environmental impact statements and put a chill on everything that is threatening our resources," he said. "Taxpayers should not have to clean up this mess."

No more roads

On transportation issues, Pentel would build no more roads in the Twin Cities, instead relying on efforts to move people to trains or buses, or walking. In rural Minnesota, he'd like to see intracity buses.

He doesn't support a gas tax increase, because those funds are dedicated to building more roads. Instead, he would tax polluters for the soot they produce, which could also eventually end up as a cents add-on at the pumps but not into the constitutionally dedicated gas tax account.

A state Health Department report of such hidden costs - premature deaths, bronchitis, lost productivity, asthma, lost days at work, etc. - at the coal-fired Riverside plant in northeast Minneapolis at $57 million a year, he said.

The costs can be leveled per ton of coal, or per gallon of gas, Pentel said.

"The key thing is to reveal these hidden costs at some point in the cycle," he said. "It starts getting more accurate accounting - those who say nuclear power is too cheap, it's efficient, or that coal only costs so much per kilowatt, is not honest."

Power may be produced at 2 cents kWh, but adding the hidden health costs boosts it 2.8 centers, Pentel said, "which makes all other types of energy options competitive."

Pentel was in Moorhead to highlight that city's use of wind power generation, in which he says subscribers pay a ��-cent more per kWh for the power but 450 initially joined and another 450 are expected. A third turbine is expected to be added to the network.

"We have 300 businesses in Minnesota that do energy efficiency and renewable energy," he said. "They employ 12,000 people and do $2.1 billion in revenue. If we really invested and used incentives, we're in a good place in this state."

And renewable energy within a community keeps money in the community, he notes.

Return to '60s taxes

Pentel, in a race with three heavyweights, also notes their chief issue - plugging a projected $3.2 billion state budget hole next year. And while his competitors haven't been specific, Pentel has revenue-raising ideas.

He did a study of Minnesota's tax structure in the 1960s and found that the top 10 percent income-earners were paying about 18 percent of their total income in all taxes. Now it's at 10 percent.

"If we were to raise it to the level of the 1960s, we would generate about $4.8 billion," Pentel said. "We could clean up the deficit, we have money to fully fund schools or we have money for housing."

Another source, he said, is a water fee on industrial/commercial use of fresh water - an idea of environmentalist Leslie Davis. A fee of 1 cent a gallon would raise $1 billion.

To keep the party's message going, a statewide Green Party candidate needs at least 5 percent of the general vote. Pentel hopes that comes in his race, that of state auditor candidate Dave Berger or secretary of state candidate Andrew Koebrick.

"People's votes do count," Pentel said. "If they want this voice in the mix as a major party, then their vote is important to keep us as a major party."