As Johnson wobbles, Emmer repairs relations with Trump

WASHINGTON — Will she or won’t she?

That question consumed Washington this week as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene continued with her threat to force a vote that would determine whether Speaker Mike Johnson would continue to lead the House GOP.

The Georgia Republican says she would move forward with her “motion to vacate” — the same House procedure that ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy — if Johnson brought a Ukraine aid bill to the floor. She and other hard-right lawmakers are already angry at Johnson over his budget deals with Democrats.

Because of the GOP’s dwindling majority, mainly due to early retirements, Green would only need one more GOP vote besides her own to remove Johnson — if all House Democrats voted to oust him, too.

On Thursday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., seemed to throw Johnson a lifeline by signaling he might be OK with some defections.

He said “a good number of Democrats” don’t want to see Johnson fall over Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Rep. Tom Emmer, R-6^th District, has been working hard to patch up his differences with former President Donald Trump, who torpedoed Emmer’s chances of becoming House speaker last year after McCathy was ousted.

Those overtures to Trump have ratcheted up speculation that Emmer, now in the No. 3 House leadership position as majority whip, may want to try for the top job again if Johnson is ousted or in House leadership elections held after November’s general election.

Trump is credited for killing Emmer’s bid for speaker last year by blasting the Minnesota Republican as a “Globalist RINO” — Republican in Name Only — and said his ascension would be a “tragic mistake.”

Not only has Emmer full-heartedly endorsed Trump, held a fundraiser with him at Mar-a-Lago and become the Trump campaign chairman in Minnesota — promising the former president he’d win the state in November — he is also wooing the most conservative members of the U.S. House by consistently moving to the right.   

A recent example is Emmer’s false accusation on X that President Joe Biden had declared Easter Sunday as “Transgender Day of Visibility.” Easter just happened to fall on the day that aims to honor transgendered individuals this year.

A spokeswoman for Emmer declined to tell Bloomberg whether the lawmaker still has aspirations for the speakership. She said Emmer is “focused on supporting House Republicans and winning in November.”

Emmer continues to be a leading fundraiser for House Republicans, reporting this week that he has raised $7.2 million in the first quarter of fundraising for this year. That includes raising about $1.3 million for the National Republican Congressional Committee and another $1.1 million for the campaigns of GOP House members and Republican challengers.

McCollum seeks animal cruelty investigation

Rep. Betty McCollum, D-4^th District, has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to investigate SeaQuest, a chain of aquariums with a location in Roseville, amid allegations of animal cruelty.

Besides tanks and ponds filled with aquatic life, SeaQuest, whose USDA-licensed facilities are often in shopping malls, also has petting zoos. It charges $50 or more for people to hold “interactions” with animals that former employees say are often neglected, frightened and exhausted.

McCollum decided to get involved in the issue after an initial story on the operations at SeaQuest by ABC News, which was followed by a localized piece by KARE.

McCollum wrote to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack this week that the Rosedale facility “appears to be regularly endangering both the animals in its care and members of the public who interact with these animals…” She said the facility is in  violation of the Animal Welfare Act, which is enforced by the USDA.

“The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) plays a vital (role) in safeguarding animal welfare. However, limitations in enforcement of the AWA by APHIS is allowing facilities, like those run by SeaQuest, to flagrantly violate regulations while retaining USDA licensure to own and exhibit wild animals,” McCollum wrote.

SeaQuest did not return calls and emails for comment.

Tackling PFAS pollution

Big news on the environmental front this week as the Biden administration finalized strict limits on “forever chemicals” in drinking water, the first time the federal government has moved to limit exposure to toxic PFAS, or synthetic chemicals called perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl.

PFAS are often used to make flame-retardant clothes, non-stick cookware and other common household items. They are called “forever chemicals” because they never degrade and, if ingested, can cause a series of illnesses, including liver disease and certain cancers.

The Environmental Protection Agency also said it would make $1 billion available to help communities nationwide comply with the costs of eliminating PFAS.

Minnesota would receive nearly $15 million of that money.

“These actions will help tackle PFAS pollution that has devastated communities like Oakdale, outside of St. Paul, Minnesota, where decades of PFAS-containing waste dumped by a chemical plant has contaminated the community’s drinking water,” the EPA said in a statement. “In this area, cancer was found to be a far more likely cause of death in children than in neighboring areas.”

Maplewood-based 3M had a PFAS disposal site in Oakdale. In 2004, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency found that the site had contaminated several local sources of drinking water.

Water utilities are responsible for the cost of the cleanup and the new regulations do little to hold polluters accountable for the damage PFAS have done to the environment and human health.

But last year, 3M settled PFAS-related lawsuits for $10.3 billion.  

The Minnesota Department of Health, which has tested 919 of the 965  water systems in the state, has found that 18 have had a source testing over the maximum contaminant level (MCL) of PFAS allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Those systems provide water to Alexandria, Battle Lake, Brooklyn Park, Cimarron Park, Cloquet, Hastings, Lake Elmo, Newport, Pease, Pine City, Princeton, Sauk Rapids, South St. Paul, Stillwater, Swanville, Wabasha, Waite Park and Woodbury.

Unacceptable levels of PFAS were also detected in the water supply of three mobile home parks — Austin, Mobile Manor and Roosevelt Court — and at Minnesota Veterans Home in Hastings, home to about 60 individuals.

“Some of the systems have already taken action to remediate the situation,” health department spokeswoman Amy Barrett said. “This list included systems that have had results for an entry point to their distribution system that exceeded the new MCL. This does not mean they are providing water to consumers that is over the MCL.”

Your questions and comments

Prompted by a story on rising income inequality in Minnesota and the nation, a reader had this to say:

“For those of us in the lower 75 percent of the income distribution, the wealth disparity is mostly in housing, which can be addressed at the local and state levels with changes in housing policy.”

Another reader reacted to a story on the challenges in the U.S. House to  approving more U.S. aid to Ukraine.

“Emmer’s support for aid to Ukraine is one of the few bright spots on his record of the past few years,” the reader wrote.Please keep your comments, and any questions, coming. I’ll try my best to respond. Please contact me at aradelat@minnpost.com.