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Pawlenty says steel plant is "back on track"
Governor Pawlenty announced Wednesday that a plan to build a new steel plaint on the Iron Range - a plan that temporarily put Minnesota in the middle of a potential international political dilemma - is back on track. "We're here this afternoon to announce some very good news for Minnesota," the governor said at a press conference at the capitol. The proposed $1.6 billion steel plant in Nashwauk hit a snag when it was revealed that Essar Global, the India-based company building the plant, also had been in negotiations to build an oil refinery in Iran. Investing more than $20 million in Iran would have appeared to violate U.S. sanctions designed to punish companies for spending too much money in Iran's oil industry. But Pawlenty said his concerns had been addressed Wednesday when he received a letter from Essar, which promised "no investment or firm commitment will be made in Iran, unless and until permitted to do so under the applicable U.S. or international laws." "Essar's approach to his was extraordinarily constructive," Pawlenty said. "They were very good to work with in getting this clarified." If the Iran question hadn't been answered to Pawlenty's satisfaction, he said he would have opposed state funding for the new steel plant. And that could have cost the struggling Iron Range hundreds of jobs. "There's lots of contractors (working on the plant), and so, there's going to be many, many more jobs than 700 on the Iron Range," as a result of the project, said Sen. Tom Saxhaug (DFL-Grand Rapids). Governor Pawlenty was asked why the media found out that Essar was in talks with Iran before he did. The story broke in an article by Reuters last week, two days after Pawlenty secured the commitment to invest in the plant during his trip to India. "We do our best through Google, or other means, to make sure we understand what their involvement may or may not be around the world," Pawlenty said of companies seen as potential business partners by the state of Minnesota. Pawlenty also said that Essar's interest in Iran eventually would have come to light, as part of the process. But now that Essar says it won't invest in Iran, the governor says he will support a $67 million state subsidy for the Iron Range plant. That state money still has to be approved by the legislature.
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