State to hire 64 bureaucrats to squander your tax dollars on ‘green energy’ programs

The Minnesota Department of Commerce’s Division of Energy Resources has added 64 new government bureaucrat positions to its roughly 90 employees, bloating its staff by nearly two-thirds, using your state and federal tax dollars.

These additional bureaucrats will help manage seven new energy-related programs enacted by Minnesota’s liberal legislature this spring, including a $100 million “green energy” slush fund called the “green bank.”

Some of the new hires are already funneling your federal tax dollars into unreliable energy projects funded through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). “Bringing in hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, requires dedicated staffing,” said Michelle Gransee, a deputy commissioner who oversees the division.

Ultimately, the rush to wind, solar, and electric vehicles is a patronage play by liberal lawmakers who are catering to their overwhelmingly affluent, college-educated constituency. These are the types of people with excess money to spend on vanity purchases like electric vehicles and who can afford to pay Minnesota’s rising electricity prices.

Unfortunately, the rest of us are left subsidizing this virtue signaling through higher taxes and higher energy prices.