Email: Housing & Green Energy Plans Coming into Focus for Minnesota

Housing & Green Energy Plans Coming into Focus for MinnesotaHere's the news in our sights today:

Finance and Commerce: Minnesota 2020 proposes new program to stabilize housing
St. Paul-based think tank Minnesota 2020 is calling for a new program to stabilize Minnesota's housing market. The group, which was launched in 2007 by former DFL state House Minority Leader Matt Entenza, has come out with a report that calls for the state to create a program that guarantees homeowners' down payments. Minnesota 2020 calls it the Minnesota Home Values Guarantee Program
WSJ: Crop Forecast to Show State of the Sector 
Luke Chandler, director of agricultural commodity research for Dutch financial giant Rabobank Group, said he expects U.S. farmers to plant 84 million acres of corn compared with 86 million acres last year. A smaller corn harvest, plus federal mandates that require gasoline marketers to use more corn-derived ethanol fuel this year, would tend to keep the seasonal average price of corn between $3.50 and $4 a bushel -- roughly twice what it was for much of the 1990s and early this decade.
Finance and Commerce: Purchase gives Wisconsin Power the chance to develop 400MW wind farm
Pending approval, Schultz said WPL plans to start development of the 200-megawatt first phase in mid-2009. The utility, which serves 1 million electric consumers in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin, owns one other wind energy development.
Finance and Commerce: Green Hercules subsidiary aims to be giant in cap-and-trade offsets
Emissions trading, better known as cap-and-trade, sets an overall limit ("the cap") on how much pollution an industry can produce. Individual companies within that industry get pollution permits, which can be traded. By investing in equipment that reduces pollution, a company can sell its credits to competitors that haven't reduced pollution. Thus, companies have a financial incentive to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases.
Star Tribune: Foreclosed eyesore converted into energy-efficient home 
Thanks in large part to a Hennepin County neighborhood-maintenance program, a boarded-up, foreclosed home at 4307 Wentworth Ave. S. in Minneapolis has been torn down to its foundation, then rehabilitated into a virtually new, three-bedroom, two-bath, energy-efficient house, complete with a two-car garage. It now has an estimated market value of about $200,000 - but one lucky income-qualified buyer will be able to pick it up for $142,000.
Star Tribune: Editorial: Sports scholarships, foreign students
"For academic and athletic reasons, both are bad bills. But even more important, the message behind them is that Minnesota is increasingly inward-looking. This at a time when it should be presenting itself as a state that expects and accepts diversity and is ready to work with and compete against global competition, whether in the boardroom or up against the boards on a hockey rink."
Echo Press: Funding comes in for home weatherization projects
""Rising energy costs are making it hard for Minnesotans to heat their homes in the winter," said U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota. "These funds will help families save money, create jobs and businesses, and reduce energy consumption to make sure Minnesota families aren't left out in the cold. It is imperative that we give our families the help they need to keep pace with the sharp increase in heating costs.""

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