Silenced in St. Paul: DFL lawmakers refuse to hear our testimony on California Fuel Standards

On Tuesday, DFL lawmakers barred Center of the American Experiment from testifying on a bill in the Minnesota House of Representatives that would cause even more gas station inflation by bringing the California Fuel Standard (CFS) to our state.

The CFS is the subject of American Experiment’s latest report Gas Station Inflation: How the Walz Administration’s “Clean Fuel Standard” would increase pain at the pump.

Our research discusses how this policy would increase the cost of gasoline and diesel fuel by 20 cents per gallon in the near term, and by up to 54 cents per gallon by 2035. This would cost the average Minnesota household an additional $210 to $568 dollars per year in fuel costs, but none of this additional money would go to maintaining our roads and bridges.

We asked for two minutes, in which my coauthor Mitch Rolling would testify — presenting our side of the story — but we were told there would not be enough time for us to do so. Nine other groups were allowed to testify, but the only organizations that got to testify on the bill that opposed it were groups that didn’t think it went far enough.

It was like a meeting of the Minneapolis City Council, where the only opposition that was allowed to have a voice was from the left to pull the bill further in that direction.

Apparently, the bill author is afraid of alternative perspectives, but given the high cost of this program, these voices deserve to be heard. After all, doesn’t democracy die in darkness?