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Question 4: The Governor of Minnesota will be asked to come up with solutions to a variety of issues that culminate in the tension between the need to protect the environment, and the need to sustain economic development. Solutions to conflicts that have arisen through issues such as the BWCA, timber resources, agriculture, including feedlots, and others will require making difficult choices and creating consensus. What are some of the tradeoffs you see in these rural and urban issues? In your rebuttal please respond to these two questions. Can you create consensus between these divergent Minnesota interests to work out some of these problems. If so, how would you create that consensus? PENTEL Response to Question 4: As the question is posed it sets up a false rivalry between environmental protection vs. sustained economic development. The question should be how do we relieve tension between a sustainable environment, society and unsustainable development? We can live as a state sustainably with appropriate perimeters in the development of new technologies, education, and regional and rural planning. As governor I would collaborate with citizens to help identify the needs of rural and urban Minnesota and their common ecological, cultural and economic linkages. I would then offer a plan that would diversify rural economy. This could be done in a variety of ways, such as:
As governor I would promote small scale decentralized investments in rural and urban Minnesota so the economies of the state are shared among the most people. This would lead to less monopolization and a broader range of appropriate and innovative technologies, education and small businesses. One of the major concerns I have is that many entrenched economic interests (for example: energy, agriculture, timber, financial institutions, transportation, developers etc.) are not sensitive to the limits of our resource base. The short term gains of these interests are creating tension that hinders our long term sustainable choices. |