Minnesota's Green Energy Follies, Part 3

In Part 1 of this series, I discuss how Democrat leadership has decided that 2013 will be the Year of Solar in energy policy at the Minnesota State Legislature.  In Part 2, I discuss how the state’s leading environmental groups got together and decided 2013 would be the Year of Solar.  Right on time, the Minneapolis Star Tribune tells us this morning that 2013 will be a “Big Year for Solar.”

The Star Tribune’s story includes a quote from the Minnesota Solar Energy Industries Association, a member of the umbrella group Solar Works for Minnesota.  The Association’s Policy Director, Lynn Hinkle, tells the paper that his “group is pushing for special, higher rates on solar power sold to utilities.”  The public University of Minnesota is eager to tell us about “Unleashing Minnesota's Solar Power Potential.”  Good to know.

That the stars have aligned just so to promote solar power is not a coincidence.  It is the result of a well-coordinated and well-funded effort that combines the resources of wealthy philanthropists with the willing participation of local nonprofits, left-leaning political organizations, elected officials, media and academic institutions.

It may surprise the casual observer of Minnesota politics to learn that the state’s energy policy is about to take this sharp left turn as the result of the whims of a New York-born oil heiress.  However, St. Paul insiders are very much aware of the influence of Alida Rockefeller Messinger and her $ millions in support of left-wing causes, great and small.  Mrs. Messinger is the 64-year-old great-granddaughter of Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller and the former wife of current Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton.

At the national level, good government types are appalled that the two Presidential candidates spent more than $2 billion, combined, on the 2012 election.  Keep in mind that Americans spend $7 billion a year on potato chips.  No, what is really amazing is that the entire politics of a mid-sized state can be purchased with a few $ million, if well-placed.

The involvement of Mrs. Messinger and her fossil-fuel funding of the state’s Democrat (styled DFL, Democrat-Farmer-Labor in Minnesota) politics and fashionable environmental issues dates back years.

In 2008, she underwrote $1 million of the $3.7 million Vote Yes campaign along with lesser amounts donated by her Dayton relatives.[1]  Vote Yes succeeded in passing the Legacy Amendment to the Minnesota Constitution to raise the state’s sales taxes.  The Legacy Amendment provides more than $311 million in taxpayer funds available to fund left-leaning environmental and arts groups.

An October 23, 2011, Minneapolis Star Tribune profile of Mrs. Messinger documents her $10 million in donations to candidates and causes over the past decade, including the $500,000 she spent on getting her ex-husband elected Governor in 2010.  The paper discussed her plans to spend more money to elect a Democrat-controlled legislature in 2012 to work with the Governor. 

To what end?  The Star Tribune reports that her passion lies in environmental causes,

“Her first big philanthropic endeavor came in the late 1960s, when she was a college student in California and wanted to block logging companies from clear-cutting redwood forests. More than 40 years later, the anger she felt toward environmental degradation still burns.

‘I have the same feeling of indignation at companies and corporations that scoop up natural resources and then dump pollutants,’ she said.”

She continues to channel that 40 years of anger into political action.  Mrs. Messinger currently serves as Vice President and a board member of the environmental non-profit Conservation Minnesota.  In 2010, Conservation Minnesota received a grant of $175,000 from the Rockefeller Family Fund,[2] a charity where Mrs. Messinger’s son, Eric Dayton, serves on the Board of Trustees.

Mrs. Messinger holds the same positions as Vice President and board member of the related group, the Conservation Minnesota Voter Center.  The Voter Center endorses political candidates, including, in 2012, incoming House Energy Policy Committee Chair Melissa Hortman and Committee members Andrew Falk and Yvonne Selcer.

The related Conservation Minnesota Voter Fund donates small amounts of cash directly to candidates and to the DFL party.  In 2012, the fund was financed primarily by Dayton family member Mary Lee Dayton with lesser amounts donated by Conservation Minnesota strategic advisor Peter Gove and retired professor Darby Nelson.[3]  Professor Nelson serves on the Conservation Minnesota board alongside Mrs. Messinger and contributed cash separately to Chair Hortman’s 2012 re-election campaign.[4]

The Voter Fund donated cash directly to the campaign of House Committee member Andrew Falk (DFL-17A).[5]

Executive Director of local environmental non-profit Fresh Energy Michael Noble serves with Mrs. Messinger on the Voter Center’s board.  The University of Minnesota will lend its credibility and provide the whole exercise with an academic veneer when Mr. Noble speaks on March 6^th at the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota.  In 2010, Fresh Energy received a $100,000 grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund,[6] a charity founded by Mrs. Messinger’s father (James D. Rockefeller, III) and his brothers, upon whose board her uncle, David Rockefeller, continues to serve as an advisory trustee.  Also in 2010, Fresh Energy received two grants from the separate Rockefeller Family Fund, one for $20,000[7] and a second for $448,500.[8]  Fresh Energy is a member group of Solar Works for Minnesota.  Fresh Energy lists as one of its 2013 legislative session priorities implementing the 10 percent solar energy standard (fifth item).

Soon after his 2011 inauguration, Mrs. Messinger’s ex-husband, Governor Mark Dayton (Eric Dayton’s father), appointed non-profit executive Bill Grant as his new Deputy Commissioner for Commerce, the state’s top energy policy position.  In 2010, the Rockefeller Family Fund had donated $235,000 to Mr. Grant’s organization, the Izaak Walton League chapter based in St. Paul.[9]  The Izaak Walton League’s Midwest Office is a member group of Solar Works for Minnesota.

Until his appointment to public office, Izaak Walton head Bill Grant served as the non-executive board chair of the non-profit group Minnesota Environmental Partnership (MEP).[10]  In 2010, his last year as Chair, MEP received a grant from the Rockefeller Family Fund of $740,328.[11]  MEP lists its clean energy priority as developing solar power.  MEP is a member group of Solar Works for Minnesota.

Even these big dollar amounts represent small potatoes compared to Mrs. Messinger's larger efforts to win DFL control of the state legislature and place Rep. Hortman in charge of energy policy.  Minnesota Public Radio documented in February 2012 the web of groups through which Mrs. Messinger was implementing her takeover of the legislature.

Through October 2012, Mrs. Messinger had donated $800,000 to WIN Minnesota[12] (with other Dayton family members contributing lesser amounts) and $50,000 to the 2012 Fund.[13]  These entities, in turn, donated more than $3 million to the Alliance for a Better Minnesota,[14] which used the money to defeat Republican candidates for the state legislature.  According to IRS records, Mrs. Messinger served as a Director of WIN Minnesota’s 501c(4) organization in 2010,[15] the last year for which public records are available.  That year WIN Minnesota donated $25,000 to Mark Dayton’s recount fund,[16] in the 2010 Governor’s race.

In Part 4, I will take a guess at just how much your electric bill will be going up.  Think billion, with a "b."

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[1] Vote Yes filing at the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, filed February 8, 2009, Schedule A1, p. 5.

[2] Rockefeller Family Fund, IRS Form 990, Schedule I-1, page 8, filed November 17, 2011.

[3] Conservation Minnesota Voter Fund filing with the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, October, 29, 2012, Schedule A1.

[4] Melissa Hortman Campaign Committee filing with the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, October 27, 2012, Schedule A1-IND, p. 2

[5] Conservation Minnesota Voter Fund filing with the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, October, 29, 2012, Schedule B2, p. 3.

[6] Rockefeller Brothers Fund, IRS Form 990, Schedule 13, Page 17 of 44, filed November 17, 2011.

[7] Rockefeller Family Fund, IRS Form 990, Schedule I-1, page 3.

[8] Ibid., p. 11.

[9] Ibid., p. 11.

[10] Minnesota Environmental Partnership, IRS Form 990, page 8, Part VII., filed March 3, 2012.

[11] Rockefeller Family Fund, IRS Form 990, Schedule I-1, p. 12.

[12] WIN Minnesota Political Action Fund filing with the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, filed October 29, 2012, Schedule A1, p. 4.

[13] 2012 Fund filing at the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, filed October 29, 2012, Schedule A1, p. 2.

[14] Alliance for a Better Minnesota Action Fund, filing at the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board,  filed October 31, 2012, Schedule A1.

[15] WIN Minnesota IRS Form 990, filed November 7, 2011, p. 7, Part VII.

[16] WIN Minnesota IRS Form 990, filed November 7, 2011, Schedule I, p. 1.