The U.S. Supreme Court denied a request this week from utilities around the country to suspend the Environmental Protection Agency's controversial rule that limits carbon dioxide emissions from coal and gas-fired power plants.

Major trade groups including the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), the Edison Electric Institute and National Mining Association had sought a stay of the rule, but in rejecting the request the court said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is expected to make a decision in the case before compliance work needs begin next June. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote the decision, said because a ruling in the case will be made soon, the applicants seeking the stay "are unlikely to suffer irreparable harm."

Kavanaugh did express his opinion that “the applicants have shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits as to at least some of their challenges to the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule.”

Under the EPA’s rule issued in April, coal-fired and new natural gas-fired power plants that intend to operate beyond 2039 will be required to install a dioxide carbon capture and storage system capable of capturing 90% of the CO2 emissions by 2032.

The Lignite Energy Council issued a statement that it was disappointed, but not surprised by the Supreme Court's decision to let the Carbon Rule stand while legal challenges continue.

"This rule sets unrealistic emission standards, particularly for regions like North Dakota where lignite-fired power plants play a critical role in providing reliable and affordable electricity," the statement read. "By imposing technology mandates that are not yet commercially viable, the EPA is pushing the power industry toward irreversible decisions that will harm grid reliability, raise costs for consumers, and threaten thousands of jobs in the Upper Midwest."

"North Dakota has been a leader in clean air standards and energy innovation, yet the EPA’s latest actions disregard the unique characteristics of our industry," the statement continued. "Carbon capture technology, which we support and are actively developing, needs time and investment to mature. Mandating its widespread use before it’s commercially scalable is both irresponsible and dangerous for grid reliability."

NRECA CEO Jim Matheson also issued a statement in response to the Supreme Court's denial of its application to stay the EPA's power plant rule.

“The EPA Power Plant Rule poses severe harm to American consumers, the U.S. economy and the nation’s electric grid,” Matheson said. “Given today’s ruling, it is essential that the DC Circuit expedites their evaluation of the legality of the EPA rule, which we believe is unlawful, unrealistic and unachievable.  Failure to do so will jeopardize the reliability of the nation’s electric grid, which is already under threat from skyrocketing electricity demand.” 

Arguments in the lawsuit challenging the rule are expected to begin early next year in the D.C. Circuit, but the litigation could be affected by the results of the presidential election. If Kamala Harris is elected, the administration would continue defending the rule, but if Donald Trump wins the election, his EPA could ask the court to remand the rule so the agency could rewrite it.

North Dakota oil production crept slightly higher in the month of August, averaging 1.179 million barrels per day, about 10,000 bbl/day above the July figure.

Natural gas production also climbed nearly two percent in August to an average of 3.527 billion cubic feet per day, only about 55 million cubic feet per day short of the all-time record set last December. The state did set an all-time high with 19,117 producing wells, nearly 90% of which are horizontal wells producing from the Bakken and Three Forks formations.

During the monthly Director's Cut news conference, Mark Bohrer, assistant director of the Department of Mineral Resources, said there was one downside in the report. While there were 97 well completions in the month of August, Bohrer said preliminary figures indicate only 58 wells were brought online in September.

Click here to listen to Bohrer's comments.

Bohrer said the wildfires that started October 5 will have an impact on future production numbers, but he said the oil industry has done a good job responding to the challenge.

Click here to listen to Bohrer's comments.

Justin Kringstad, director of the ND Pipeline Authority, said the loss of production from wells shut in during the fires will have an impact on the October numbers.

Click here to listen to Kringstad's comments.

DMR Director Nathan Anderson said producers have been responsive in efforts to prevent additional fires, and are now in the process of bringing wells back on line.

Click here to listen to Anderson's comments.

Anderson said some of the well sites still offline did not sustain any damage, but in some cases the electrical infrastructure that supplies power to the wells has yet to be restored.

Click here to read or download the Director's Cut. Click here to watch video of the news conference.

Multiple agencies across western North Dakota are mobilizing resources and donations from the public to assist individuals and businesses that suffered losses during the devastating wildfires earlier this month.

Anyone interested in contributing time or money to the recovery effort is urged to visit the North Dakota Wildfire Recovery website for details about assistance being offered and how to help. The Williston Area Chamber of Commerce will also be updating its website frequently to demonstrate how to help. You can also learn more about area needs through a new Facebook Page created as a Ray/Tioga Fire Recovery Hub to unite the community and coordinate the outpouring of support.

The North Dakota Community Foundation has established the 2024 Western North Dakota Fire Relief Fund to assist in disaster response and recovery efforts. All gifts to the relief fund are tax-deductible as charitable contributions. Click here for details.

The ND Stockmens Association has launched an Out of the Ashes Wildfire Disaster Relief Program to help North Dakota cattlemen and women offset losses from the destructive fires. Monetary contributions can be made on the Stockmens website. Gifts will be pooled and distributed to North Dakota cattle ranchers this winter through an application and nomination process.

Farm Rescue is also seeking financial support from individuals, corporations, and foundations to fund its disaster relief efforts in western North Dakota. As the only organization in North Dakota and United States that supports family farm and ranch operations experiencing crisis, including natural disasters, Farm Rescue is uniquely positioned to help the farms and ranches affected by the terrible wildfires. Click here to make a donation, or send an email if you have questions.

By Mary Steurer | North Dakota Monitor

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe on Monday filed a new lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers arguing that the Dakota Access Pipeline is operating illegally and must be shut down.

The tribe has long opposed the pipeline, also referred to as DAPL, due to concerns that it violates the tribe’s sovereignty, endangers sacred cultural sites and threatens to pollute the tribe’s water supply. The Army Corps of Engineers has jurisdiction over the section of the pipeline that passes under Lake Oahe — a reservoir on the Missouri River — roughly a half-mile upstream from the Standing Rock Reservation. 

The tribe in a 34-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia argues the Army Corps flouted federal regulations by allowing the pipeline to operate without an easement, sufficient study of possible environmental impacts or the necessary emergency spill response plans, among other alleged violations.

“We are fighting for our rights and the water that is life for Oceti Sakowin tribes,” Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairwoman Janet Alkire said during a news conference the afternoon of Indigenous Peoples Day. 

The Army Corps of Engineers did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The more than 1,000-mile-long pipeline carries crude oil from the Bakken oil fields of northwest North Dakota to Illinois, and has been operating since 2017. Its pathway includes unceded land recognized as belonging to the Sioux Nation under an 1851 treaty with the U.S. government. 

The lawsuit was triggered in part by a 2024 engineering report that raised questions about the construction of the pipeline crossing below Lake Oahe, representatives of the tribe said Monday. The report calculated that up to 1.4 million gallons of bentonite clay-based drilling mud used in the horizontal directional drilling process was not fully accounted for in construction records. The report notes that there is no clear indication where the fluid migrated, but that it could have seeped into the surrounding soil.

“The Corps has failed to act and failed to protect the tribe,” Alkire said of the report’s findings. 

The report was prepared by engineering consulting firm Exponent for environmental advocacy group Greenpeace as part of an ongoing lawsuit brought by pipeline developer Energy Transfer. Greenpeace commissioned the report to defend itself against Energy Transfer’s allegations that Greenpeace defamed the pipeline during its involvement in protests against DAPL in 2016 and 2017.

Click here to read more from North Dakota Monitor.

The American Petroleum Institute filed its opening brief this week in a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals lawsuit challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s heavy-duty vehicle emissions standards for model years 2027-2032. 

In March, the Biden-Harris administration finalized new emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles, including commercial vehicles. In the final rule, EPA projects that there would need to be significant deployment of zero emission vehicles (ZEV) throughout the heavy-duty fleet to meet emissions standards. More than 40% of work trucks would need to be ZEVs by 2032, and long-haul tractors (semi-trucks) would need to increase from nearly zero today to 25% ZEV by 2032.

“Americans overwhelmingly oppose the government telling them what to buy and drive, but this administration’s relentless pursuit of vehicle mandates does just that,” said API Senior VP and General Counsel Ryan Meyers. “EPA’s misguided effort to force electrification of America’s trucking industry is contrary to law and threatens to disrupt the nation’s supply chain, leaving consumers in the crosshairs."

Earlier this month, API released polling finding a clear majority of voters across America’s battleground states, including 77% of voters in Michigan and 78% in Pennsylvania, oppose government mandates that restrict consumer choice, including banning new fuel and hybrid vehicles. 

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, National Corn Growers Association, and American Farm Bureau Federation previously joined API as co-petitioners in the lawsuit.

Gov. Doug Burgum signed a memorandum of understanding this week between the state of North Dakota and the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER) to establish a partnership and promote discussions in energy technology research and development.

The signing was part of a trade and investment mission to South Korea. With a population of nearly 52 million people in an area slightly over half the size of North Dakota, South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is the world’s second-largest exporter to North Dakota and 17th-largest export market for North Dakota. 

The MOU signed this week highlights energy as a vital factor for both the ROK and North Dakota economic development and stability, with the parties working together to identify common goals and areas of mutual interest. Those areas include information exchange, business opportunity expansion and alliances, and support for technological progress and innovation, including enhancing research capabilities in advanced clean energy technologies such as carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and batteries.

"North Dakota is a leader in energy innovation, and this partnership with Korea will enhance our competitiveness by advancing groundbreaking solutions in hydrogen, carbon capture and clean energy – helping us to continue building an all-of-the-above energy supply network that combines fossil fuels and renewables," Burgum said.

The signing ceremony at KIER headquarters in Daejeon was attended by Burgum, KIER President Chang-Keun Yi, Vice President Seong Ok Han and Charles Gorecki, CEO of the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) at the University of North Dakota, as well as Commerce Commissioner Josh Teigen and North Dakota Trade Office Executive Director Drew Combs.

KIER was the first stop on the weeklong trade and investment mission to the ROK for Burgum and fellow members of the North Dakota delegation from the North Dakota Department of Commerce, North Dakota Trade Office, EERC and North Dakota companies representing agriculture, energy, manufacturing, aerospace and technology. 

The Southwest Power Pool's stakeholders voted this week to support the single largest portfolio of transmission investments in the organization’s history.

SPP’s Integrated Transmission Planning process resulted in recommendations for $7.7 billion in transmission projects that studies show will pay for themselves in a matter of years. The projects will also return benefits at a rate of at least 8-to-1 and address reliability needs across SPP’s service territory resulting from load growth, changes in the region’s generating fleet, and resiliency from extreme weather events.

The 2024 portfolio is the product of 27 months of study and 150 meetings of 11 working groups and committees of representatives of SPP’s member organizations. SPP staff evaluated more than 2,000 potential solutions to reliability and economic system needs, eventually arriving at 89 projects that represent 2,277 miles of new transmission and 443 miles of transmission rebuilds.

SPP’s Markets and Operations Policy Committee, a group of representatives of every member of the SPP regional transmission organization, voted to approve the recommended portfolio, which will next be presented to SPP’s board of directors for final consideration on October 29.

Since it became the planning authority and regional transmission organization for the region in 2004, SPP has directed the construction of more than $12 billion in transmission projects. Studies have shown projects constructed in the SPP region provide net benefits at a rate of 5-to-1 or better when compared to engineering and construction costs.

SPP officials say the planned transmission investments are needed to enable continued load growth associated with oil and gas production, mining and placement of data centers in the SPP region, as well as to ensure long-term reliability by addressing the impacts of the retirement of conventional generators that use coal and natural gas.

WDEA's LoadPass Permits Advisory Committee will hold its fall meeting Sunday, October 20, at the Bismarck Event Center.

LoadPass Permits is the oversize truck permitting system operated by WDEA for counties and cities throughout North Dakota. The advisory committee meeting is open to county commissioners, sheriffs, road superintendents, industry trucking interests and members of the public. It will begin at 4:15 p.m., Oct. 20, in Prairie Rose Room 103 at the Event Center.

Access to the meeting will be available remotely via the Zoom platform, but participants will be required to pre-register. Interested individuals may click here to register, and will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

The agenda includes an update on LoadPass expansion activities, software improvements to the permit system and an update on WDEA's Wise Roads project.

Click here to see the agenda. Click here to pre-register.

By Adam Kurtz

Members of the UND student government voted to oppose a controversial measure that will appear on the ballot in North Dakota’s upcoming 2024 general election.

The Student Senate voted unanimously in favor of the nonbinding “Resolution in Opposition to Initiated Ballot Measure 4” on October 9 at the Student Senate’s regular meeting. If approved in the North Dakota general election on Nov. 5, Measure 4 would prohibit municipalities from levying property taxes based on assessed value. The measure also requires the state to provide cities, counties and school districts with funding at the same level as current property taxes do.

Measure 4, according to its official ballot language, does not specify how the state would provide this funding. Additional verbiage in the ballot language estimates the measure would cost the state $3.15 billion for the 2025-27 biennium. Shortly after Wednesday’s meeting, Student Body President Connor Ferguson was asked if he’d had any doubts the Student Senate’s resolution would pass.

“No, not really. A lot of the students that I have spoken to about Measure 4, when they first hear that it would lower taxes, say it sounds like a really good thing," Ferguson said. "But then when they start discussing what property taxes actually pay for, it starts to sound like less and less of a good idea.”

Tanner Earsley, senator from the Nistler College of Business & Public Administration, said he was “passionate” about opposing Measure 4. He also said that the tax rate on owner-occupied housing in North Dakota is a little under the national average, and that other states aren’t moving to eliminate property taxes. Like other senators at Wednesday’s meeting, Earsley questioned where the state would find the funds needed to operate municipal governments.

“I think it’s important that we say no on this sort of thing, because there’s no plan, and no plan is a bad plan,” Earsley said.

The student government resolution also “urges the North Dakota Student Association and the Student Government Associations of the 11 public institutions of North Dakota to draft resolutions in opposition to Initiated Constitutional Ballot Measure 4.”

The Greater North Dakota Chamber is planning a day-long conference November 7 in Dickinson focused on the essential infrastructure and transportation networks that drive North Dakota's economy and connect the state beyond its borders.

The forum titled Build & Beyond will discuss the infrastructure needed for providing households access to better employment, healthcare, and education opportunities, while ensuring connections between cities and people for reliable supply chains and the movement of goods and services.

The event features a series of insightful sessions led by national and regional subject matter experts who work within various industries daily, striving for the success of their businesses in North Dakota. Attendees will hear updates on policy trends and data impacting various sectors, understanding how transportation and related policies influence all industries and the state's economic landscape.

The forum will be held Nov. 7 at the Astoria Hotel and Event Center, with the program set to begin at 9:00 a.m. MST.

Click here to learn more or to register for the event.

The North Dakota Department of Transportation will host a public input meeting Monday, October 21, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. MDT to discuss proposed improvements to Chateau Road in Medora.  

The project includes reconstruction of Chateau Road from Pacific Avenue (I-94 Business Loop) to the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation Burning Hills Amphitheater.

The meeting will be held at the Medora Community Center in the Roosevelt Room located at 465 Pacific Ave., with a formal presentation scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Representatives from the NDDOT and KLJ Engineering will be on hand to answer questions and discuss concerns. A pre-recorded presentation and other materials will be available here.

If unable to attend the meeting, written comments may be sent by November 4 with “Public Input Meeting - PCN 24246” in the letter heading or e-mail subject. Send all comments to Adam McGill, KLJ Engineering, 400 E Broadway Ave., Suite 600, Bismarck, ND 58501 or email adam.mcgill@kljeng.com.

The Vision West ND Consortium has scheduled a Natural Resources & Energy Public Workshop October 29 in Beulah.

Attendees will hear industry experts, scientists, and policymakers provide an in-depth look at the future of energy resources in North Dakota. The workshop will explore cutting-edge advancements in CO2 capture, sustainable agriculture, electric grid reliability, and the evolving role of rare earth minerals in energy production. 

The workshop will offer insight into the state's role in shaping sustainable energy practices and the future of agriculture through carbon credits and storage solutions.

The agenda includes presentations on CO2 capture in native grasslands, the lignite industry's carbon management strategy, promoting more natural gas usage in North Dakota, rare earth minerals, and battery power systems.

The registration fee is just $20.00 and includes lunch. Click here to register.

Comets can be tough to spot with the naked eye, but images of Tsuchinshan-ATLAS were captured this week by multiple cameras that are part of the Wise Roads network of weather stations. Photos from Wise Roads cameras are updated continuously throughout the daylight hours on the Wise Roads web page.

The Wise Roads project (Weather Information System to Effectively Reduce Oilfield Delays and Disruptions) was developed by WDEA to increase the efficiency of the movement of oilfield truck traffic. Most weather stations were placed in the core area of Bakken production, focusing on Dunn, McKenzie, Mountrail and Williams Counties. The project provides more accurate weather information to county road managers, especially about rain events, to minimize the need to impose weight restrictions when gravel roads get wet. It was developed in partnership with NDAWN, which maintains the stations for WDEA. The project was also assisted with a $250,000 grant from the Oil & Gas Research Council.

Fifty new stations have been installed, 39 of which are located in the four core oil-producing counties. Prior to the start of the project, Dunn and McKenzie Counties had just one station each, Mountrail County had three and Williams County had four. Weather station data and high-resolution photos can be found at wiseroadsnd.com. There is also an interactive Google Map that users can access to pinpoint the location of Wise Roads and NDAWN weather stations. Additional information is also available from NDAWN. 

Featured shots this week are clockwise from upper left: Poker Jim, with the comet visible just after sunset; Grassy Butte, with the comet visible in the western sky; Turtle Lake, with another view of the comet; and Pickardville, with a shot of the comet at the station located east of Underwood. Click on the link for a high-resolution image.