As founder of the Minnesota-based Earth Protector political action group, Leslie Davis, 61, has lobbied against such environmental hazards as garbage burning, illegal toxic waste deposition and deforestation since 1982.
As governor, he said, he will distribute the Davis Manifesto, a document detailing his policy recommendations, to the state Legislature.
These recommendations include a tax charging two cents per gallon of water used for industrial production, as opposed to the current $4.50 per million gallons.
That action alone, he said, will create a $2 billion budget surplus for funding state economic, education and environmental programs.
Davis said he stands out from other write-in candidates because of his innovative ideas. Coupled with an aggressive, grass-roots style campaign, he said he hopes to gain statewide recognition as a political figure.
“I have to create an interest and an excitement before our election,” Davis said.
A significant part of that effort, he said, includes spreading his ideas at the University and other local colleges. Armed with copies of his manifesto, he said, he hopes to ignite student interest in an environmental revolution.
“The best thing I can do is get 100,000 students on any given day on the state Capitol with the Davis Manifesto,” he said. “If activism stopped the Vietnam War, it can stop the war on the environment.”