What's the Environmental Record of Governor Tim Walz?

Last year, soon after he won his second term to be governor, Walz signed a bill that would force utilities to be carbon-free by 2040.  It was opposed forcefully by Republicans, but now Minnesota is among a handful of states with such a strong mandate.

Three years ago, Walz led his state to require car dealers to sell more electric vehicles by adopting emission standards like the tough ones in California, and so far Minnesota is the only Midwestern state to do so. Walz led the effort to update his state’s commercial building codes to tackle greenhouse gas emissions and lower utility costs for low-income households. As the Star Tribune reports, this year the governor signed a bill supporting wind and solar farms and making it easier to permit infrastructure that replaces gas and coal plants.

Walz has been criticized for approving an oil pipeline, which according to Native American Tribes and activists represented a major new commitment to fossil fuels and also threatened water aquifers. Addiitionally, the governor has defended permits issued by his state for a copper-nickel mine, which some feared could release acidic drainage.

However, Walz signed into law a broad ban on PFAS or “forever” chemicals, which is considered to be one of the most aggressive in the world and the strictest in the country, according to E&E News.

A Mylar balloon touched a power line near the Carrollton Water Treatment Plant and caused a brief power fluctuation—only about three minutes—but it was enough to put much of the city under a boil water advisory. According to Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans (SWBNO), the fluctuation took pumps offline and staff rushed to turn them back on.

Unfortunately, as one employee responded, they sustained serious injuries. Two other operators administered first aid while awaiting EMS, but the incident delayed efforts to manually turn on the pumps and caused the system to briefly dip below 20 pounds per second (psi) for about ten minutes. That triggered a precautionary boil water advisory in case any bacteriological contaminants entered the pipes during the time offline.

Mylar is a type of metallic foil, so it conducts electricity. More and more, runaway balloons are getting snagged in power lines and some cities are passing ordinances banning their outdoor release, including Las Vegas. California passed a law outlawing Mylar balloons starting in 2031, citing their risk to ignite wildfires and spark power outages.

For example, tiger sharks are the guardians of wide areas of seagrass by keeping them from being overgrazed by sea turtles. Writing in The Conversation, one of the study’s authors points out that in Bermuda, there has been an almost total collapse of seagrasses, a place where the sharks have declined.

Just having sharks near an ecosystem can be beneficial. White sharks off the California coast can force otters closer to inland waters, where they prey upon crabs that eat sea slugs. Sea slugs help seagrasses, which provide habitat for juvenile fish and shellfish, by removing algae from them.

Some sharks are an important food source for other animals. Orcas eat white sharks, a large species, and larger hammerheads eat smaller blacktip sharks. Sharks also provide nutrients to reefs by excreting their waste at ones located away from shore waters where they feed.

Humans are killing many shark’s species at unsustainable rates mainly through overfishing and using nets and long lines. The authors say there’s an urgent need for countries to refocus on where and how to conserve the animals.

The study was published in the journal Science.

They did the math and calculated that it could generate more than 60 percent of global energy consumption every year, all while using land already set aside for transportation and giving it a dual purpose. What’s more, the team figured that by putting solar panels over major roads in the world, we could produce the same amount of energy that would otherwise be generated by fossil fuels, which was equal to two-thirds of greenhouse gases the U.S. released in 2022.

Covering roads with solar would be no small feat, requiring some 52.3 billion panels. But, if pulled off across the globe, it would generate up to 17,578 terawatt-hours per year, which is more than four times the annual energy output of the United States.

The authors say another benefit of putting photovoltaic roofs on highways would be a reduction in worldwide traffic deaths by 10.8 percent, especially in regions with high precipitation, by shielding drivers from rain and snow. Improved highway safety would additionally reduce the economic costs of traffic accidents.

The idea is not without its challenges. Installations on highways would be more expensive to set up than ground arrays, and the maintenance could be problematic—someone’s gotta climb up there to keep those panels clean.

The study was published in Earth’s Future, an open-access AGU journal that publishes interdisciplinary research on the past, present, and future of our planet and its inhabitants.