Star Tribune
Minnesota will build fast EV charging stations, replace dozens of trucks with VW settlement money
Minnesota will build 13 fast charging stations for electric vehicles on highways around the state with the last of the Volkswagen settlement money it is set to receive.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency unveiled its plan for how it will spend $14 million — the final round of the $47 million settlement owed to the state after the car-making giant was caught cheating federal emission standards for years.
About $2 million will go to building the new charging stations, under the plan. The bulk of the rest of the money will be spent helping school districts replace about 50 school buses and companies replace dozens of diesel trucks and other heavy equipment.
Under the terms of the settlement, the state is allowed to spend up to 15 % of the money on charging stations. By the time the final round of spending is over, Minnesota will have hit that maximum of around $7 million. The state has already installed 22 fast charging stations along highway corridors as well as dozens of smaller chargers in grocery store parking lots of grocery stores and other public places.
The goal is to reduce range anxiety, especially in rural areas, said Rocky Sisk, the project leader for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
“Gasoline and diesel vehicles had 100-year head start on electric vehicles,” Sisk said. “It’s going to take some time to catch up on that.”
Minnesota started receiving the money in 2018. It set benchmarks then for how many tons of greenhouse gases and nitrogen dioxide pollution it planned to eliminate with the settlement cash. The state is well on track to meet those goals. It’s already more than doubled its original projected cuts to fine-particle pollution and may end up exceeding its goals for reducing greenhouse gas and nitrogen dioxide pollution.
The biggest cuts have come not from electrification, but from replacing older diesel engines with more efficient ones, according to the state’s data.
New diesel trucks and other heavy equipment produce about 95% less nitrogen dioxide and fine-particulate pollution than diesel engines built before 2010, according to the agency. In the case of school buses, diesel models also cost about a third of electric-powered buses, Sisk said.
The state has been trying to balance investing in electric vehicles and equipment, he said, with chasing the immediate emission reductions from cleaner diesel engines.
Other major reductions were found from relatively cheap investments.
The state will spend a few hundred thousand dollars helping railroad companies install generators at about a dozen rail-yards. The generators will allow the companies to shut off giant diesel engines that sometimes idle and run for 24 hours a day to keep the locomotives warm and functioning.
“The big thing is the technology is there now to do this,” Sisk said. “Train companies are looking at it. We want to jump-start this and get more people involved.”
The state has already tested it at a couple sites and pollution regulators have been wowed by the results, he said.
The 12 50-horsepower generators are expected to cut more emissions than eliminating hundreds of old diesel buses, trucks and other heavy equipment. They’ll reduce more than 10,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions and keep thousands of tons of nitrogen dioxide from billowing into the air.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation closed part of a state highway Wednesday evening near Austin because of a “major hazardous materials release” in the area.
Hwy. 56 from Hayfield to Waltham, a stretch covering about five miles, was closed in both directions and drivers were directed to follow a detour to Blooming Prairie on U.S. Hwy. 218.
No information on the hazardous materials released was immediately available.
A federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit against Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II during a 2023 traffic stop.
The decision is the latest development in a case that has drawn heated debate over excessive use of force by law enforcement. Criminal charges against Londregan were dismissed by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty in June, saying the prosecution didn’t have the evidence to proceed with a case.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel granted Londregan’s motion to dismiss the civil suit, arguing he acted reasonably when he opened fire as Cobb’s vehicle lurched forward with another state trooper partly inside.
Londregan’s attorney Chris Madelsaid Wednesday that it’s been a “long, grueling journey to justice. Ryan Londregan has finally arrived.”
On July 31, 2023, the two troopers pulled over Cobb, 33, on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis for driving without taillights and later learned he was wanted for violating a felony domestic no-contact order. Cobb refused commands to exit the car.
With Seide partly inside the car while trying to unbuckle Cobb’s seatbelt, the car moved forward. Londregan then opened fire, hitting Cobb twice.
In her decision, Brasel said the troopers were mandated by state law to make an arrest given Cobb’s domestic no-contact order violation. She said it was objectively reasonable for Londregan to believe Seide was in immediate danger as the car moved forward on a busy highway, which would make his use of force reasonable.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Donald Trump walked down the steps of the Boeing 757 that bears his name, walked across a rain-soaked tarmac and, after twice missing the handle, climbed into the passenger seat of a white garbage truck that also carried his name.
The former president, once a reality TV star known for his showmanship, wanted to draw attention to a remark made a day earlier by his successor, Democratic President Joe Biden, that suggested Trump’s supporters were garbage. Trump has used the remark as a cudgel against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
”How do you like my garbage truck?” Trump said, wearing an orange and yellow safety vest over his white dress shirt and red tie. ”This is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden.”
Trump and other Republicans were facing pushback of their own for comments by a comedian at a weekend Trump rally who disparaged Puerto Rico as a ”floating island of garbage.” Trump then seized on a comment Biden made on a late Wednesday call that “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”
The president tried to clarify the comment afterward, saying he had intended to say Trump’s demonization of Latinos was unconscionable. But it was too late.
On Thursday, after arriving in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for an evening rally, Trump climbed into the garbage truck, carrying on a brief discussion with reporters while looking out the window — similar to what he did earlier this month during a photo opportunity he staged at a Pennsylvania McDonalds.
He again tried to distance himself from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, whose joke had set off the firestorm, but Trump did not denounce it. He also said he did not need to apologize to Puerto Ricans.
”I don’t know anything about the comedian,” Trump said. ”I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him. I heard he made a statement, but it was a statement that he made. He’s a comedian, what can I tell you. I know nothing about him.”
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