Will North Dakota Get Its Own "Green New Deal"?
Will North Dakota Get Its Own "Green New Deal"?
Governor Burgum's 2023-25 budget includes a massive $500 million injection for the "Clean Sustainable Energy Fund"; but other forces at play may be looking to hijack that intent.
Previously, I have highlighted two BIG proposals to reform the state’s income tax system and to reform the state’s public pension fund policy. Taxpayers should be nothing but supportive of both of these proposals.
One of the biggest boondoggles of the last few years in North Dakota has been what was created in the 2021 Legislative Session called the “Clean and Sustainable Energy Fund.” This was part of the $500 million coal industry bailout bill that we strongly opposed at the time.
The Clean Sustainable Energy Fund is an open-ended expansion of government.
Based on the makeup of the voting committee, the deck is clearly stacked for using the money and the government program to bailout, subsidize, and prop-up traditional energy. And since we have multiple bills this session to help the coal industry, one can only assume it is to help that industry. At least for a little while.
It is also becoming apparent that the goal of the fund is to use state tax dollars to create a government program that will subsidize speculative technology with the goal of making fossil fuel based energy more marketable to states that have decided they don’t want such power sources.
In March of 2021 I appeared on Rick Becker’s TV show to discuss this agenda and this new fund. (Click here to watch that video.)
After the legislative session, in May 2021, Governor Burgum announced his goal to make North Dakota “carbon neutral” by 2030.
To make it clear - taxpayers are now going to be asked to not only prop up coal, but also pay for the transition into energy sources that will make coal obsolete.
Apparently, Governor Doug Burgum has his own Green New Deal.
Under Governor Burgum’s 2023-25 budget, the Clean and Sustainable Energy Fund would balloon this program to a $500 million program in order to pay for what I refer to as “Doug Burgum’s North Dakota Green New Deal”.
The 2021 legislature approved loan authority for the Clean Sustainable Energy Fund, and now we propose investing $500 million between this biennium and next to capitalize the Clean Sustainable Energy Loan Fund. This infusion, along with $50 million for grants through the fund, will support clean energy projects such as carbon capture, which represents a path forward for baseload coal power through innovation over regulation.
This is frankly an absurd proposal. $500 million is a huge amount of public money to put out there, even if it is a revolving loan fund (there is no guarantee the money will be paid back).
This plan is further complicated by the fact that there is already draft legislation floating to end the role of the Clean Sustainable Energy Fund as promoting new/alternative energies, and make it exclusively a subsidy program to quote “stabilize or enhance access to markets for energy derived from agricultural products, lignite coal, or oil and gas” - and deleting references to research/development of new energy technologies.
Clearly, there will be a fight over what this fund is REALLY about, now on top of it, there will be the idea that the fund needs a $500 million piggy bank to throw around.
The North Dakota Watchdog Network will oppose all of these changes, as it did the fund originally. This massive taxpayer-funded corporate welfare program is a bridge too far both for the purposes of being North Dakota’s Green New Deal, or as a protectionism savior for the coal industry.
The challenges the coal industry faces are based on the actions of the federal government and other states restricting the ability to sell power generated by coal. If there is no market to sell the power to, as Minnesota is cutting itself off from coal power, then no amount of government intervention will help.
Burgum's "deal" has nothing to do with green and everything to do with greenwashing.