On the evening of August 26, the Center of the American Experiment (CAE) won a hard-earned and well-deserved award from the State Policy Network (SPN), for bringing to national attention Minnesota’s fraud scandal of “Feeding Our Future”. In his acceptance speech, CAE President John Hinderaker pointed out that:
“It can be tough being a policy organization in a blue state because it isn’t easy to get good policy implemented. On the other hand, bad policy and incompetent government create a lot of opportunities for important public campaigns.“
One such “bad policy,” from an “incompetent government” in this “blue state” of Minnesota, has “created” yet another “opportunity for an important public campaign” on fraud. That being the Natural Gas Innovation Act or NGIA, which is not about “natural gas innovation,” but about natural gas elimination from residential homes and commercial businesses.
Although probably not actionable in a court of law, this fraudulently titled statute is actionable in the court of public opinion. And, the NGIA may not be within the letter, but is certainly within the spirit, of the legal definition of fraud:
“For a statement to be an intentional misrepresentation, the person who made it must either have known the statement was false or been reckless as to its truth.”
Situation
Minnesota is now into the fifth year of a long-term state plan to effectively ban the use of natural gas for most homes and businesses. This plan is the NGIA, which was signed into law by Governor Tim Walz in June 2021.
The NGIA has an opaque end game: “It is the goal of the state of Minnesota that through the Natural Gas Innovation Act, utilities reduce the overall amount of natural gas produced from conventional geologic sources delivered to customers.”
The NGIA has speculative means to that end: “Innovative resource means biogas, renewable natural gas, power-to-hydrogen, power-to-ammonia, carbon capture, strategic electrification, district energy, and energy efficiency.”
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is far clearer about NGIA than the statute:
“The NGIA and its innovation plans enable gas utilities to begin testing methods to reduce their emissions, and in some cases, transfer their business away from natural gas entirely. The results of approved pilots will lay the groundwork for future decarbonization efforts in the state and help gas utilities achieve the state’s goal of economy-wide carbon neutrality by 2050. “
Six of the eight “innovative resources” use a lot of electricity. That six includes the most favored one of strategic electrification, which in turn includes geothermal heat pumps, which can result in four times the usage of electricity in winter.
And electricity in Minnesota is no longer cheap, since the era of renewables. From 2002 to 2025, electricity prices increased 118%, whilst natural gas decreased by 9%. Thus, electricity went from 319% more expensive than natural gas in 2002, to 763% by 2025. Renewable electricity caused this. The No-more Natural Gas Act will make this far worse.
Complication
The first complication is that the NGIA is one of the purportedly more than 40 state climate laws and programs in the Climate Action Framework (CAF), which aim to:
- reduce GHG emissions by 50% by 2030;
- 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040;
- achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
The second complication is that the PUC is pursuing reduced natural gas use through other means. This includes the Energy Conservation and Optimization (ECO) program, which encourages heat pumps over central air conditioners for some new homes. This also includes the Gas Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), which will evaluate specific dual-fuel heating models that use electricity for most heating and switch to natural gas only during the coldest hours.
The third complication is that natural gas has increasingly been used for electricity generation in the 21st century, as renewables generation was massively increased, coal generation was retired, and no new nuclear generation has been allowed. The latter is more than likely to change in 2027 or 2028, but it might take until 2035 for new nuclear generation capacity to come into operation.
These complications make repealing the NGIA somewhat harder and possibly mooted. This is because these will still put pressure on residential and commercial users to reduce and replace natural gas use in favor of industrial, very large (e.g. data centers) and electricity generation users. The latter two will reinforce and accelerate that, given the long lead times for building new nuclear electricity generation.
Solution
These complications can be overcome. Firstly, affordability is the top voter issue in this state, and energy is one of the key reasons for that. Repealing the NGIA is an easy first step for the new governor and legislature to take in 2027. This is made easier given that Democrats across the nation are backing away from climate change as an election issue in 2026.
Secondly, NGIA’s repeal is also made more likely by the current Minnesota government study to possibly end the moratorium on new nuclear power in the state. This study has strong bipartisan support and is due by the end of January 2027. Expectations are that the study will recommend ending the moratorium. And new nuclear could come online by 2030, rather than 2035, given the recent advances in technology, along with federal government support and data center uptake.
Repealing the moratorium and NGIA together could possibly form part of a legislative package on energy affordability. This would not only immediately defund NGIA related programs to curtail and replace natural gas, and related rate increases, it would send a strong signal to the PUC to back off and get real on ECO and IRP.
This might also sow the seeds for the PUC, CenterPoint and Xcel to heed the winds of change in the air on climate change. Big Tech have been a big part of that change, as they increasingly look to build nuclear and natural gas to power data centers, and to do so in ways that don’t hurt ratepayers (e.g. bring their own power off-grid) or even help (e.g. build excess capacity on-grid).
Conclusion
We at CAE will:
- continue to expose the NGIA, for the fraud it is on Minnesotan voters and ratepayers;
- encourage public push-back on the NGIA, on CenterPoint, Xcel and the PUC;
- seek support for the repeal of the NGIA, amongst both DFL and GOP candidates.
Regarding the second, please consider having your say to the PUC about the NGIA by:
- 4:30pm October 14, in terms of CenterPoint‘s annual report to the PUC on their natural gas replacement plans, spending and related NG rate increases; and/or
- 4:30pm October 21, in terms of Xcel‘s annual report to the PUC on their natural gas replacement plans, spending and related NG rate increases.
Anyone from the public can and should comment. Not just on the details of the CenterPoint and Xcel reports, but also on the need to repeal the NGIA. One can submit comments here:
