Wilder Foundation, a longstanding St. Paul nonprofit, has launched a new mental health and substance abuse disorder clinic on the city’s East Side.

The Wilder East Clinic opened Thursday at 445 Etna St., just north of Interstate 94 and Wilson Avenue. The clinic is in direct response to increased demand in the east metro for mental health and substance abuse disorder services, particularly among children and teens, according to a statement from the organization.

The clinic is geared toward offering culturally responsive services in multiple languages, with affordable care options that include parent education and family support groups. Wilder’s 2022 needs assessment found significant gaps in mental health care for Black, Southeast Asian, Latino and African immigrant families in the east metro, on top of growing need coming out of the pandemic.

“We are committed to expanding our services to meet the urgent needs of the east metro and St. Paul communities,” said Pahoua Yang, vice president of community mental health and wellness at Wilder, in the statement. “Wilder has long been a leader in school-based mental health services and culturally specific care, but with growing demand, it’s clear that we must scale our services to
provide timely, accessible and effective care to more families.”

Wilder maintains a longstanding clinic in the St. Paul Midway and also offers home-based and community-based care. A formal ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new clinic is planned this fall. Visit wilder.org/east-clinic for more information.

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“New York can forge ahead by adopting a Clean Fuel Standard (CFS). It’s a proven, market-driven strategy for rapidly decarbonizing transportation at minimal public expense.”

A truck traveling through Queens. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

This week, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a budget deal which allocates $1 billion for climate programs, details TBA. But the Legislature still has urgent work to do to implement New York’s landmark climate law and defend it from Trump administration attacks. To accelerate climate progress, it should pass a clean fuel policy this session.

The state’s climate law mandates a 40 percent greenhouse gas reduction by 2030, and 100 percent zero-emission electricity generation by 2040. We’re not on track to meet those goals.  Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency denounced the law as unimplementable, even as the U.S. Department of the Interior revoked the permit for a large windpower project off Long Island that would have helped implement it. 

But New York can forge ahead by adopting a Clean Fuel Standard (CFS). It’s a proven, market-driven strategy for rapidly decarbonizing transportation at minimal public expense.

CFS policies incentivize low-carbon fuels and electricity for transportation, including renewable diesel and renewable natural gas made from organic wastes. They work by making polluters, not taxpayers, pay for cleaner alternatives, requiring high-carbon fuel producers to buy credits from low-carbon fuel producers. As carbon emissions targets tighten year on year, production of clean fuels generating the most credits ratchet up.

These programs really work. Since California adopted the first Low Carbon Fuel Standard in 2011, clean fuels replaced over 31 billion gallons of liquid petroleum fuel in-state, reducing the  California transportation sector’s carbon intensity by over 15 percent three years ahead of schedule, and that progress is accelerating. Similar standards were adopted in Oregon, Washington State, New Mexico, and Canada. 

Eleven other U.S. states are considering them, including New York, which is undertaking a CFS feasibility study. But the jury is already in: CFS works. Decarbonizing transportation is urgent, and the Legislature should enact CFS.

New York’s transportation sector is its second largest greenhouse gas emitter and a major source of toxic air pollution. Diesel truck exhaust contributes to smog and acid rain, harms health, and kills 3,000 New Yorkers annually. By far the worst offenders are thousands of heavy-duty diesel trucks built before 2013 still on our roads. A CFS would enable replacing them with cleaner fuel trucks.

An Energy Vision report recently assessed three replacement technologies: trucks running on renewable diesel made from vegetable oils; compressed natural gas trucks running on RNG made from organic wastes; and heavy-duty electric vehicles.

It found that while EVs work well as light- and medium-duty trucks up to 26,000 pounds, they aren’t yet a practical replacement for heavier trucks (Class 7 and 8). Heavy-duty EV trucks cost $250,000 more than diesels. Their large, heavy batteries shrink cargo capacity.

They have limited range, performance issues, longer downtime, and scant availability (fewer than 1,800 were deployed nationwide from 2017 to mid-2024). Although their tailpipe emissions are zero, their overall emissions are not. In NYS, fossil fuels still generate about half the electricity charging their batteries. And heavy-duty EVs require costly high-capacity charging stations, which have yet to be built here. 

Following California’s lead, New York instituted an Advanced Clean Trucks rule requiring truck manufacturers to sell an increasing percentage of zero-emissions vehicles starting this year, rising to 100 percent by 2045. The quota system favors EV trucks. 

But given concerns about their cost, performance and charging infrastructure, it’s difficult to see how the rule could realistically be applied to the heaviest EV trucks. NYS Senator Jeremy Cooney introduced a sensible bill to delay the rule’s implementation. “I remain fully committed to New York’s climate goals,” he said. “I also recognize the work needed to put infrastructure in place supporting EV trucking.”

Meanwhile, we can’t wait to start replacing New York’s oldest, dirtiest heavy trucks. There are viable alternatives we can deploy now.

There are already 90,000 heavy-duty compressed natural gas trucks on U.S. roads fueled increasingly by renewable natural gas. RNG-powered trucks have 88 percent of the clean air benefits of heavy-duty EVs, much lower costs, and potentially greater climate benefits. Producing RNG captures methane that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere and warm the planet. When made from manure or food waste, RNG has the lowest lifecycle GHGs of any fuel or battery system. 

A New York CFS would speed adoption of RNG fuel and trucks here. It would simultaneously generate funds for EV charging infrastructure, hastening implementation of the Advanced Clean Trucks rule. The two policies are complementary.

With New York’s climate targets looming, we need to make rapid progress on cleaning up our transportation sector. More charging stations will help eventually, but as NYS Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal said, “We cannot wait any longer to implement a clean fuel policy in New York State.”

The Legislature should do it this session, and not punt to next year. 

Matt Tomich is President of the non-profit organization Energy Vision.

The post Opinion: To Accelerate NY’s Climate Progress, Pass a Clean Fuel Policy appeared first on City Limits.

After 24 years in her role, National Alliance on Mental Illness Minnesota’s executive director Sue Abderholden is retiring.

Abderholden will remain in her role until Oct. 15, according to a release from the organization. The NAMI Minnesota of Directors will begin a leadership transition process in the next several months. It has formed a succession committee and retained the executive search firm Ballinger Leafblad, Inc.

When Abderholden began with the organization in 2001, it had two and half staff members and a $160,000 budget. Since that time, it has grown to 37 staffers and is a $3 million organization.

“Sue Abderholden’s leadership has been nothing short of transformational,” said Jessica Gourneau, president of the NAMI Minnesota Board of Directors, in a statement. “She has led NAMI Minnesota with vision, heart, and an unwavering commitment to those living with mental illnesses and their families. Because of Sue, our organization has grown in reach, reputation, and impact. Her fierce advocacy at the legislature, her strategic partnerships across sectors, and her tireless work to create culturally responsive, person-centered care have set the gold standard for mental health advocacy.”

Abderholden’s advocacy has helped pass more than two dozen laws affecting education, healthcare, housing and criminal justice for people with mental illnesses, according to the organization. This has included advocating for laws requiring mental health training for teachers, getting mental health screenings for those entering jails, reforming the state’s commitment laws to promote voluntary engagement in treatment, expanding crisis and early interventions services, the diversity of the workforce and strengthening mental health parity protections. She also worked to restrict the use of solitary confinement in prisons for people with mental illness.

Abderholden’s work has been recognized with multiple awards, including the Minneapolis Health Department’s Health Equity Award, Macalester College’s Distinguished Citizen Award, the National NAMI Rona and Ken Purdy Award to End Discrimination, and multiple recognitions as one of Minnesota Physicians’ “100 Most Influential Health Care Leaders.”

In addition to her work with NAMI Minnesota, Abderholden also has taught about health and mental health policy at the University of Minnesota’s School of Social Work and served on several state advisory committees and task forces, according to the University.

“It has been the honor of a lifetime to be part of this movement,” Abderholden said in a statement. “The people who courageously shared their stories, the families who organized for change, and the advocates who never gave up — they are the reason for our success. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have worked alongside so many incredible individuals to help build a better, more compassionate mental health system for Minnesota.”

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President Donald Trump’s proposed budget looks to end the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft and Gateway space station central to NASA’s existing Artemis program — but only after a successful moon landing as the nation remains in a race with China.

A preliminary overview of the White House’s planned 2026 discretionary budget released Friday dubbed SLS and Orion as “grossly expensive and delayed,” citing that each launch SLS rocket alone costs the government $4 billion and is 140% over budget.

It’s among billions in cuts for the overall $18.8 billion proposed budget for NASA, which for the current fiscal year is nearly $25 billion. Ultimately, Congress will pass a budget and it often counters presidential proposals.

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The Trump administration looks to drop funds toward Artemis’ future launches by $879 million with a goal of ending them after the Artemis III flight.

“The budget funds a program to replace SLS and Orion flights to the moon with more cost-effective commercial systems that would support more ambitious subsequent lunar missions,” the White House proposal stated. “The budget also proposes to terminate the Gateway, a small lunar space station in development with international partners, which would have been used to support future SLS and Orion missions.”

NASA flew the successful uncrewed Artemis I mission that orbited the moon in 2022 and has its first crewed mission, Artemis II, gearing up to fly around the moon no later than April. Artemis III, still on NASA’s calendar for summer 2027, would return humans to the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972.

NASA’s Office of the Inspector General in 2023 raised the red flag of rising costs of SLS and Orion, noting that by the time it manages to fly Artemis III the program would have topped $93 billion. That includes billions more than originally announced in 2012 as years of delays and cost increases plagued the lead-up to Artemis I.

Even nearly two years ago the audit said NASA should consider alternatives.

“Although the SLS is the only launch vehicle currently available that meets Artemis mission needs, in the next 3 to 5 years other human-rated commercial alternatives that are lighter, cheaper, and reusable may become available,” the audit said. “Therefore, NASA may want to consider whether other commercial options should be a part of its mid- to long-term plans to support its ambitious space exploration goals.”

That includes heavy-lift rockets such as Blue Origin’s New Glenn that flew for the first time early this year as well as the in-development SpaceX Starship that has made several suborbital test flights.

To that end, the Trump budget proposal looks to keep the human exploration budget the highest line item with more than $7 billion — including $1 billion in new investments to pursue Mars-focused programs.

That’s the only program with a proposed increase.

The biggest loser in the proposed budget is space science with cuts of more than $2.2 billion followed by more than $1.1 billion in cuts to Earth science, mission support and more than $500 million from space technology.

“In line with the administration’s objectives of returning to the moon before China and putting a man on Mars, the budget would reduce lower priority research and terminate unaffordable missions such as the Mars Sample Return mission that is grossly overbudget and whose goals would be achieved by human missions to Mars,” the proposal stated.