North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum
Summary written by content correspondent Genneca Houser
We jumped right into some great conversation about the Energy
Industry in North Dakota since the Biden Administration has taken over.
Many changes have taken place just since January 20th including
President Biden signing Executive Orders that would otherwise cripple
the Energy Industry in varying ways. Governor Burgum discusses the
multiple ways North Dakota is looking into pushing back and the actions
being taken to make a stand for keeping North Dakota oil and gas America
strong.
“[There are]
certainly a lot of challenges and a lot of headwinds for the energy
industry and we’re doing everything we can in North Dakota to fight back
against that and make sure that we’re fighting for American jobs,
American manufacturing, for appropriately priced gas at the tank to help
hard-working American families, and everything we can to keep our
economy strong and our country strong.” – Gov. Doug Burgum
With the Keystone XL Pipeline shut down right now, there are even
more issues to consider than the immediate job loss, revenue, and energy
infrastructure problems. Gov. Burgum talks about the scary idea that a
precedent was just set – one that allows for the federal government to
shut down huge projects that have not only been in the works for years,
but also have been running efficiently for years.
“This is another
thing which I think should be chilling to all Americans in every
industry, not just the energy industry. But, the attack against a
legally permitted infrastructure is going to make it very difficult to
raise capital.” – Gov. Doug Burgum
We move on to talk about the recent cold snap that resulted in
electrical grid instability in different parts of the country and how it
may impact policy and procedure in the energy industry as time moves
forward. Governor Burgum also outlines the flaws in the current plan to
shut down production in the United States while allowing other countries
to pick up the slack and produce in our place. Governor Burgum
highlights the need for innovation and progress when it comes to
utilizing the captured carbon and helping to solve emissions problems
that the current “solution” (regulations) simply won’t fix. Plus, he
talks a bit about Project Tundra, an initiative to build the world’s
largest carbon capturing facility in North Dakota!
“Well, I think that
because the impacts are so severe, both on states and on jobs, and on
the private sector and on communities, that you are going to see
action.” – Governor Doug Burgum
“The federal
government’s sitting on the sidelines right now on this and like I said,
they’re spending tens of billions of dollars providing tax breaks for
intermittent power sources which are part of the issue we have with this
grid instability and they’re spending almost nothing supporting the
innovation around ‘how do we actually come up with solutions’…” –
Governor Doug Burgum
It’s been an exciting month, to
say the least. The best anyone can do is to continue moving forward and
now for the energy industry to move positively forward, Governor Burgum
says that both education and political action will be necessary. “We’ve
got a lot of positive things we can keep fighting for and I’m confident
we’re gonna’ represent our states well in this battle. ” – Governor
Doug Burgum
