Dakota Beacon

America's national security and America's economic security are tied directly to America's energy security. Yet the Obama administration seems determined to use every tool at its disposal to unilaterally disarm the exploration and recovery of our own natural resources while dictators and communist regimes happily enable our dependency on foreign energy.

Let's review the record.
 
First there was the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) formal declaration that carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels is harmful to human health. This set the stage for the federal government to regulate emissions from power plants, automobiles, factories, farm machinery and other sources. When it became clear opposition to Cap & Trade legislation was growing among the citizens, the administration chose to use the bureaucracy to do what the people's representatives would not.
 
Next the EPA decided to classify coal combustion wastes (ash) as hazardous. EPA has never classified coal ash as hazardous. In fact, after more than 20 years of study and analysis, the Clinton Administration classified coal ash as a "non-hazardous" waste. Coal ash in North Dakota is a marketable byproduct of electric generation that is used in concrete. In fact, coal ash is used in the foundations for wind turbines and in many roads and highways.

Recently the Department of the Interior initiated drastic changes in their oversight of approved state programs which regulate surface coal mining and reclamation operations. The ND Public Service Commission administers such a program. Our coal mining and reclamation program has been federally approved for 30 years and has consistently received excellent oversight reports from the Office of Surface Mining and is frequently applauded as one of the best in the country.
 
However, under these changes, the Interior Department conducts for the first time since coal-producing states assumed responsibility for their regulatory programs, independent federal inspections of state permitted mines without the presence of state inspectors. This is likely to result in the federal inspectors trying to overrule actions and determinations by the state inspectors and it will create uncertainty and confusion for the mining companies.

Just weeks ago, the Bureau of Land Management suspended plans to sell over 100,000 acres of oil and gas leases in the Dakotas and Montana until federal land managers study how oilfield activities contribute to climate change.
 
Now the EPA is studying the effects of hydraulic fracturing in North Dakota oil fields, likely in an attempt to federally regulate a previously unregulated part of oil recovery.
 
All of these intrusions on states' rights are aimed right at fossil fuels and the energy economy and are driven by political ideology rather than economic and scientific reality.
 
I am proud of the job North Dakota industry and public officials do in responsibly growing our economy through a balanced regulatory approach. We enjoy the lowest cost energy in the country while contributing to our nation's growing demand for low cost power. In doing so, we enjoy some of the cleanest air and richest natural and cultural resources anywhere. It is why we are the envy of the world.
 
Let's not let Barak Obama and his band of bureaucrats do to North Dakota what they've done to the nation.

We can and are doing better.