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Doug Burgum’s support for carbon pipelines could spell presidential campaign trouble in Iowa

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Doug Burgum’s support for carbon pipelines could spell presidential campaign trouble in Iowa


FARGO — North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum has spent a good portion of his time on the presidential campaign trail in Iowa, where he’s been able to leverage his small-town Midwestern roots and familiarity with agriculture.

Of all the Republican presidential candidates, Burgum may be uniquely qualified to campaign in Iowa, which is home to the first contest in the presidential primaries. But his position on one issue of particular importance to rural voters could pose a challenge for his campaign.

Disputes surrounding the construction of carbon dioxide-carrying pipelines are a hot-button issue in Iowa, and Burgum is a big supporter of one of the projects, which could be key for offsetting North Dakota’s climate change-linked greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2021, Burgum made an unusual move for a Republican governor of a top oil-producing state:

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He called for North Dakota to become carbon neutral by 2030.

How does a state that produces more than a million barrels of oil a day aim to offset its emissions? By piping in CO2 from other states.

Projects to do just that are happening in Iowa, where three companies are seeking to build pipelines from Iowa ethanol plants to carry liquefied CO2 out of state for storage in an effort to combat climate change.

Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions is in the process of developing a 2,000-mile pipeline that would carry emissions from ethanol plants in Iowa across five states to be stored in underground rock formations in North Dakota. Permit discussions with regulators in states along the route are ongoing.

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A map of the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline project as it travels into Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota.

Troy Becker / The Forum

Burgum is one of the project’s biggest cheerleaders. In the past, he defended using eminent domain to make landowners sell access for pipelines to developers. He

defended the practice

at an Iowa campaign event in July, the Des Moines Register reported.

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“We wouldn’t have an interstate highway system. We wouldn’t have the transcontinental railroads. We wouldn’t have just about anything in this country (without eminent domain),” the newspaper quoted Burgum as saying. “It’s very difficult to get 100% of people to agree. The important thing is that they have an opportunity in that process to be heard and be fairly compensated.”

Pipeline projects are highly controversial in rural Iowa, and polling suggests the vast majority of Iowans are opposed to the use of eminent domain to build them. A 2023

Des Moines Register poll

found more than 3 in 4 Iowans oppose eminent domain use in carbon-capture pipeline projects.

There’s also been a push in that state’s Legislature to ban the use of eminent domain for those projects. A bill passed in the state’s House earlier this year but never got a hearing in the Senate.

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At a campaign event earlier in September,

Burgum clashed with a group of voters

on the pipeline issue, according to an NBC report. One voter accused Burgum of being a supporter of eminent domain, a characterization the governor disputed.

Pipeline opposition has led to unlikely alliances between landowners and environmental activists. Less than 10 years ago, both Iowa farmers and the Sierra Club found themselves opposing the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline through the state. Now, they’re working together again to oppose the construction of pipelines carrying carbon dioxide out of the state.

Environmentalists oppose the disruptions caused by pipeline construction and see carbon-capture projects as wishful thinking or a ploy by polluters attempting to continue greenhouse gas-emitting activities.

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But it’s Iowa farmers and landowners, who tend to lean conservative, whom Burgum needs to worry about in the nation’s first presidential primary next year. According to the Des Moines Register, 72% of Iowa Republicans oppose eminent domain for carbon projects.

Some farmers don’t want their land dug up for pipeline construction, and there’s a chance government approval for projects would give the developers eminent domain rights, allowing them to build without permission.

That hasn’t happened for the carbon pipeline projects in Iowa, but it has in the past for other pipelines, including Dakota Access, and developers could do that again. Summit has told Iowa lawmakers it will need eminent domain to complete the project.

While carbon pipelines don’t run the risk of spilling thousands of gallons of a hazardous substance like oil pipelines do, they aren’t 100% safe. A carbon pipeline explosion in Mississippi sent more than 40 people to the hospital in 2020. 

Although there are not many safety incidents with CO2 pipelines, opponents say what happened in Mississippi shows the public should exercise caution. With

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billions in federal dollars available for CO2 capture

and storage projects and Biden administration support for thousands of miles of pipeline, networks could grow.

Burgum has downplayed safety concerns about the pipelines in the past, telling the editorial board of The Bismarck Tribune that North Dakota has had pipelines operate safely for decades.

He

told the board

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that critics of pipelines are “Trying to turn carbon and CO2 into the devil element on the periodic table,” and that carbon sequestration could actually help solve major environmental problems.





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North Dakota

Port: Make families great again

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Port: Make families great again


MINOT — Gov.-elect Kelly Armstrong is roaring into office with some political capital to spend. I have some ideas for how to spend it during next year’s legislative session.

It’s a three-pronged plan focused on children. I’m calling it “Make Families Great Again.” I’m no marketing genius, but I have been a dad for 24 years. There are some things the state could do to help.

The first is school lunches. The state should pay for them. The Legislature had a rollicking debate about this during the 2023 session. The opponents, who liken this to a handout, largely won the debate. Armstrong could put some muscle behind a new initiative to have the state take over payments. The social media gadflies might not like it, but it would prove deeply popular with the general public, especially if we neutralize the “handout” argument by reframing the debate.

North Dakota families are obligated to send their children to school. The kids have to eat. The lunch bills add up. I have two kids in public school. In the 2023-2024 school year, I paid $1,501.65 for lunches. That’s more than I pay in income taxes.

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How much would it cost? In the 2023 session,

House Bill 1491

would have appropriated $89.5 million to cover the cost. The price tag would likely be similar now, but don’t consider it an expense so much as putting nearly $90 million back in the pockets of families with school-age children. A demographic that, thanks to inflation and other factors, could use some help.

Speaking of helping, the second plank of this plan is child care. This burgeoning cost is not just a millstone around young families’ necks but also hurts our state’s economy. We have a chronic workforce shortage, yet many North Dakotans are held out of the workforce because they either cannot find child care or because the care available is prohibitively expensive.

State leaders haven’t exactly been sitting on their hands. During the 2023 session, Gov. Doug Burgum signed

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a $66 million child care package

focusing on assistance and incentives. We should do something bolder.

Maybe a direct tax credit to cover at least some of the expenses?

The last plank is getting vaccination rates back on track.

According to data from the state Department of Health,

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the kindergarten-age vaccination rate for chicken pox declined 3.76% from the 2019-2020 school year. The rate for the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is down 3.72%, polio vaccines 3.54%, hepatitis B vaccines 2.27%, and the vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis 3.91%.

Meanwhile, personal and religious exemptions for kindergarten students have risen by nearly 69%.

This may be politically risky for Armstrong. Anti-vaxx crankery is on the rise among Republicans, but, again, Armstrong has some political capital to spend. This would be a helpful place for it. A campaign to turn vaccine rates around would help protect the kids from diseases that haven’t been a concern in generations. It would help address workforce needs as well.

When a sick kid can’t go to school or day care, parents can’t go to work.

These ideas are practical and bold and would do a great deal to help North Dakota families.

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Rob Port is a news reporter, columnist, and podcast host for the Forum News Service with an extensive background in investigations and public records. He covers politics and government in North Dakota and the upper Midwest. Reach him at rport@forumcomm.com. Click here to subscribe to his Plain Talk podcast.





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North Dakota 77-73 Loyola Marymount (Nov 22, 2024) Game Recap – ESPN

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North Dakota 77-73 Loyola Marymount (Nov 22, 2024) Game Recap – ESPN


LOS ANGELES — — Treysen Eaglestaff had 23 points in North Dakota’s 77-73 win over Loyola Marymount on Friday night.

Eaglestaff also contributed five rebounds for the Fightin’ Hawks (3-2). Mier Panoam scored 16 points and added seven rebounds. Dariyus Woodson had 12 points.

The Lions (1-3) were led in scoring by Caleb Stone-Carrawell with 17 points. Alex Merkviladze added 16 points, eight rebounds, four assists and two steals. Will Johnston had 15 points and four assists.

North Dakota went into the half ahead of Loyola Marymount 36-32. Eaglestaff led North Dakota with 12 second-half points.

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——

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.



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National monument proposed for North Dakota Badlands, with tribes' support

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National monument proposed for North Dakota Badlands, with tribes' support


BISMARCK, N.D. — A coalition of conservation groups and Native American tribal citizens on Friday called on President Joe Biden to designate nearly 140,000 acres of rugged, scenic Badlands as North Dakota’s first national monument, a proposal several tribal nations say would preserve the area’s indigenous and cultural heritage.

The proposed Maah Daah Hey National Monument would encompass 11 noncontiguous, newly designated units totaling 139,729 acres (56,546 hectares) in the Little Missouri National Grassland. The proposed units would hug the popular recreation trail of the same name and neighbor Theodore Roosevelt National Park, named for the 26th president who ranched and roamed in the Badlands as a young man in the 1880s.

“When you tell the story of landscape, you have to tell the story of people,” said Michael Barthelemy, an enrolled member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation and director of Native American studies at Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College. “You have to tell the story of the people that first inhabited those places and the symbiotic relationship between the people and the landscape, how the people worked to shape the land and how the land worked to shape the people.”

The National Park Service oversees national monuments, which are similar to national parks and usually designated by the president to protect the landscape’s features.

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Supporters have traveled twice to Washington to meet with White House, Interior Department, Forest Service and Department of Agriculture officials. But the effort faces an uphill battle with less than two months remaining in Biden’s term and potential headwinds in President-elect Donald Trump ‘s incoming administration.

If unsuccessful, the group would turn to the Trump administration “because we believe this is a good idea regardless of who’s president,” Dakota Resource Council Executive Director Scott Skokos said.

Dozens if not hundreds of oil and natural gas wells dot the landscape where the proposed monument would span, according to the supporters’ map. But the proposed units have no oil and gas leases, private inholdings or surface occupancy, and no grazing leases would be removed, said North Dakota Wildlife Federation Executive Director John Bradley.

This undated image provided by Jim Fuglie shows Bullion Butte in western North Dakota. Credit: AP/Jim Fuglie

The proposal is supported by the MHA Nation, the Spirit Lake Tribe and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe through council resolutions.

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If created, the monument would help tribal citizens stay connected to their identity, said Democratic state Rep. Lisa Finley-DeVille, an MHA Nation enrolled member.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service, including national monuments. In a written statement, Burgum said: “North Dakota is proof that we can protect our precious parks, cultural heritage and natural resources AND responsibly develop our vast energy resources.”

North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven’s office said Friday was the first they had heard of the proposal, “but any effort that would make it harder for ranchers to operate and that could restrict multiple use, including energy development, is going to raise concerns with Senator Hoeven.”



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