Revenue forecasting in North Dakota has been a train wreck over the last several years. During the peak of the oil boom years revenue forecasts understated revenue by billions. Now that the oil boom is over, the forecasters have understated revenues by billions. For a state that budgets based on revenue forecasts, this is an…
David Flynn: Hard Economic Times for Oil Create Opportunities Elsewhere in North Dakota’s Economy
It is a fun time to be an economist with an interest in data, and it has nothing to do with election policies because, as we all know, those have nothing to do with data anyway (zing!). The Bureau of Economic Analysis released its GDP by Metro Area report this week (available here). The first…
A North Dakota law enforcement officer officers food and water to an anti-Dakota Access Pipeline protester who locked himself to an excavator. video via Facebook
Video: Cop Helps Dakota Access Protester Eat, Drink After Being Taunted as a “Pig”
There was a lot of drama earlier today as Dakota Access Pipeline protesters locked themselves to construction equipment along state Highway 6 south of Mandan (this is a different location from where the protests have been taking place to date). The last protester has been unlocked from the construction machinery, and arrests have been made.…
Dakota Access Protester Chains Himself to Machinery at Pipeline Construction Site
News this morning is that one of the Dakota Access Pipeline protesters has trespassed on the construction site and chained himself to a piece of construction machinery. This from one of the protest Facebook pages: Previously protesters have trespassed and vandalized construction equipment, but this is the first time they’ve gone this far. According to…
Law Enforcement Officers at Dakota Access Pipeline Protests Take Precautions After Social Media Threats
Law enforcement personnel working at the Dakota Access Pipeline protest near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation are taking precautions not to advertise their identities after threats were made to specific officers both online and in person. Currently work on the pipeline has been halted by Energy Transfer Partners due to safety concerns related to the on-going…
There Doesn’t Seem to Be Anyone Really in Control of the #NoDAPL Protest and That’s a Little Scary
The impression one gets from media reports of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, located on and near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, is that they have been organized by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and joined by other tribes and organizations from across the nation. Standing Rock tribal chairman David Archambault is written of as…
Should Dakota Access Protesters Reimburse North Dakota Taxpayers for the Cost of Law Enforcement Presence?
Earlier this year bombastic presidential candidate Donald Trump visited North Dakota, addressing a conference in Bismarck put on by the North Dakota Petroleum Council. Trump, I don’t need to tell you, is a controversial figure, and with about 7,000 people in attendance at the conference and protests of the visit planned, local law enforcement put…
Conspiracy Theories About State Response to Dakota Access Pipeline Protest Turn Out to Be Mostly False
As the state has struggled to respond to a very large, and often illegal, protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation there have been a number of unflattering rumors circulating about the state’s response. Some of the claims are: That the state has been using airplanes to inhibit cell phone…
North Dakota Taxpayers Shouldn’t Have to Subsidize Dakota Access Protest
One of the narratives which has developed around the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline which is that the State of North Dakota has committed some sort of foul by removing state-owned water tanks, and a state-owned air conditioned trailer, from the site of the protests. The folks at Amnesty International,…
Far From a Bust, They’re Still Hiring in the North Dakota Oil Patch
The end of North Dakota’s oil boom – which I was among the first to write about, I think, way back in 2014 – prompted no small amount of schandenfreude in some circles. Certain media types, always on the hunt for a negative story to tell, were quick to announce that the oil boom had…
