Tag Archives: oil

Protest organizer Kristen Kelsch hold a sign and chants across the street from the State Capitol in Bismarck on Thursday. A line of police prevented Kelsch and others from hold the protest to the Dakota Access Pipeline on the Capitol grounds Will Kincaid, Bismarck Tribune

Environmental Extremist Groups Upset to Lose an Arcane Regulatory Process as a Weapon

- January 10, 2020 - ,

Environmental Extremist Groups Upset to Lose an Arcane Regulatory Process as a Weapon

- January 10, 2020 - ,

We have a duty to ensure that infrastructure projects are built safely and responsibly. We do not have a duty to let factions of zealots impose their will on the rest of us by perverting a process, intended to facilitate responsible construction, so that it blocks any construction at all. Continue reading…

A woman holds a sign during a 2016 protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline in Bismarck NICK SMITH / BISMARCK TRIBUNE

We Should Be Governed by the Law, Not by Politics

- November 20, 2019 - ,

Politics is the means through which we choose who gets to make the law and what the law says. Politics should not govern us. All too often, it does. To illustrate this point, let me turn to what might seem like an odd example. There is a business in Grand Forks called the Northern Air…

Canada-based TC Energy spokesperson Robynn Tysver said on Monday, Nov. 4, the company has about 200 round-the-clock personnel at the site of the Keystone Pipeline oil spill focused on clean-up and remediation activities. Twelve vacuum trucks have been used to remove 4,300 barrels of oil, and heavy machinery is being used to remove the affected dirt near Edinburg, N.D. Tysver said the waste from the site will be sent to an approved facility for disposal, though she said it is unclear at this point where that facility will be. Photo by Eric Hylden / Grand Forks Herald

“If This Didn’t Have the Name Keystone on It, Nobody Would Really Be Paying Much Attention to It”

- November 19, 2019 - ,

The latest news about the Keystone pipeline spill near Edinburg, North Dakota, is that it was much larger than previously estimated. Which isn’t unusual. Initial estimates about these spills are just that. Initial estimates. They’re almost always revised once cleanup efforts commence and the true scope of the spill comes into focus. In this case,…

Print Column: Let’s Hope the Anti-Pipeline Activists Don’t Set Any Fires This Time

- November 13, 2019 - ,

MINOT, N.D. — North Dakota’s Public Service Commission will be holding a hearing in Emmons County this week concerning a proposed expansion of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The capacity would roughly double to more than 1 million barrels per day. There is a large turnout expected from both supporters and critics of the pipeline. What many North…

Senator Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota) (Joshua Komer/Grand Forks Herald)

Plain Talk: Senator Cramer Says Obama’s Iran Deal Partly to Blame for Attacks on Saudi Oil Facilities

- September 18, 2019 - ,

On this episode of Plain Talk, Senator Kevin Cramer and I discussed the recent attacks on Saudi oil facilities. Iranian equipment was used in the attacks, but the country is denying involvement. Cramer, who said he’s “read the classified CIA brief on the evidence,” said it’s his “sense” Iran was behind the attacks. “Any deniability…

A #NoDAPL protester stands in front of a burning structure as officials work to evacuate the Oceti Sakowin protest camp on February 22, 2017.

Saudi Attacks Should Make Us Thankful the Environmental Zealots Have Been (Mostly) Losing Their War on American Oil Development

- September 16, 2019 - ,

Over the weekend the American news media was obsessed with another salacious (though ultimately not nearly so salacious as initially reported) story about the Trump administration. Largely overlooked in that furor were coordinated drone attacks on roughly half of Saudi Arabia’s crude oil production facilities. Though the Saudi national oil company, Aramco, acted quickly to…

The site of the Davis Refinery, pictured on July 31, 2018, southwest of Belfield, N.D.. Tom Stromme / Bismarck Tribune

Plain Talk: Meridian Energy CEO Says Davis Refinery Will Produce Less Pollution Than Theodore Roosevelt National Park

- August 27, 2019 - ,

With two different legal battles going before the North Dakota Supreme Court, the fight over building the Davis Refinery in western North Dakota drags on. “I look back now and realize just how naive I was,” Bill Prentice, CEO of Meridian Energy, said of the process. Meridian is the company trying to build the refinery.…

Dave Glatt, the environmental health section chief for the Department of Health, talks Thursday, July 18, 2013, about the state's efforts to crack down on oil waste in western North Dakota. (TJ Jerke/Forum News Service)

North Dakota Regulators Owe the Public a Better Explanation for Spill Underreporting

- August 23, 2019 - ,

“I get it – people want more information.” That’s what North Dakota Environmental Quality Chief Dave Glatt told the Associated Press, responding to controversy over a situation were hundreds of thousands of gallons of liquid natural gas was described as merely 10 gallons in an official state report. But does Glatt get it? So far…

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp and former Vice President Joe Biden raise arms in unity at the North Dakota Democratic convention in Grand Forks during the 2018 election cycle. Photo by Eric Hylden/Grand Forks Herald

How Can Democrats Reach Out to Rural Voters When They Hate What We Do for a Living?

- August 7, 2019 - ,

Last month at one of the debates held for the crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates, supposedly moderate front runner Joe Biden said there would be no place in his administration for oil and coal. Biden on whether or not there would be a place for fossil fuels including coal and fracking in his administration:…

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