Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has a track record of supporting aggressive anti-fossil fuel energy policies over the course of his political career.
Walz has supported policies such as cap-and-trade and clean energy mandates over his career as a U.S. House representative and in his time as governor of the state of Minnesota. Some of Walz’s most aggressive positions on energy have come in the past few years as Walz has led his state in a California-style makeover of its energy policies.
“If you like the record prices and sky-high inflation delivered by the Biden-Harris energy agenda, you’re going to love Tim Walz,” said Daniel Turner, founder and executive director for Power The Future. “As Governor, Tim Walz based his agenda on the failed California model which may endear him to Kamala Harris, but not to struggling families. Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote for the failed Inflation Reduction Act, and in picking Tim Walz, it looks like she wants just another green rubber stamp.”
Walz began his career in government in 2007, getting elected to represent a rural Minnesota district in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2019, Walz left the House to take the governor’s seat. He was reelected as Minnesota’s governor in 2022. Here are a few of Walz’s most controversial stances on energy and climate policy over the course of his career:
Cap-and-Trade
Just two years into his role as a U.S. House representative, Walz, under pressure from the Obama White House, voted in support of the 2009 Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill. The bill passed the House, but died in the Senate, leaving Democrats from moderate districts to defend the unpopular legislation.
Walz later downplayed his support for the climate legislation by saying he never expected cap-and-trade, which refers to the creation of a system of emissions credits to trade and cap the overall amount of emissions, to be a part of the final bill.
“I think many of us, Collin included, [are] not altogether comfortable with the cap-and-trade mechanism, but there were so many other things in [the bill] that went the right way,” Walz said of the legislation during his reelection bid in 2010. “I never thought that the final version I would vote on would look anything like it, but it’s to move it forward.”
The bill preceded a wave of Democrats exoding the House after losing seats to the GOP in 2010. Walz was one of a few Democrats to hold on to a largely agricultural district.
Putting California in the Driver’s Seat of Minnesota’s Car Industry
In 2021, Walz embraced California-style emissions standards for Minnesota’s car industry. The governor’s administration used executive rule-making authorities to tie Minnesota’s emissions standards to California’s.
The practical impact of the rulemaking is to force Minnesota car manufacturers and dealers to stock more electric vehicles for purchase, regardless of demand for them by consumers. Minnesota’s car industry leaders expressed anger over the new rules at the time, as well as Republican legislators who felt that Walz’s administration had abused his authority to cram down the rules.
“It puts California bureaucrats in charge of our industry here in Minnesota,” Scott Lambert, president of the Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association, said at the time. “The state has no ability to modify or amend these rules.”
Republican Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka said in a statement: “His emergency powers may be over but his ego trip is not, and it looks like ‘One Minnesota’ is just ‘Walz’s Minnesota.’”
Purging Fossil Fuels From Minnesota’s Grid
Walz signed legislation in 2023 committing Minnesota’s utility companies to drawing 100% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2040. In signing the law, Walz cited the threat from “climate change.”
“Climate change impacts lives and livelihoods in every corner of our state,” he said in a statement at the time. “Minnesota will continue to lead the way on combatting climate change and we’ll create clean energy jobs in the process.”
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