In an Aug. 4th story, Gov. Burgum is quoted as saying a Walz vice presidency “would be negative for North Dakota.”  But Walz – as Minnesota governor – has already been positive for the people of North Dakota. Minnesota’s

North Star Promise tuition plan

led North Dakota State University to try to match the Walz program of free tuition to students from families earning less than $80,000 per year.  Walz’s leadership: a positive factor.

But it’s Walz’s clean energy efforts that really raise Burgum’s hackles.  

Look, Burgum is obviously a very smart guy, with a Stanford MBA, a successful software business, and two terms as governor.  Faced with devastating heat events, more powerful storms, floods, and costly disasters, he certainly can see that climate change is here and will increasingly impact the lives of North Dakotans. And he knows that the root cause of a changing climate is fossil fuel emissions.  

And yet, instead of moving the state into the future of wind, solar, geothermal – as Abbott has done in Texas – he clings to coal. His stated goal of North Dakota being a zero-emissions state (made more feasible by the Biden/Harris Inflation Reduction Act’s generous tax credits for carbon capture) shows that he understands the need to reduce carbon emissions. But how much more state and federal money should North Dakota put into Project Tundra?

Walz may be a negative for Burgum’s coal interests, having enacted legislation carefully moving Minnesota’s energy production to zero emissions by 2040. But Walz’s action – and similar actions across the country – are very positive for the health of North Dakota’s people and the state’s agricultural sector.  While it won’t happen tomorrow, technology is moving the country to a clean, dependable, and independent energy future with prices no longer subject to world events. Wind and solar alone are on pace to exceed the energy generated by coal in the USA this year.

I grew up in Fargo. As soon as I was able to lift a coal shovel, my job each winter night was to fill the hopper that fed our coal furnace. But that coal furnace was replaced by oil, then natural gas, and now, economically, by electric air source heat pumps.  

Am I nostalgic about the past? Certainly. But I’m looking forward. We’re not going back.

Bruce Anderson lives in St. Cloud, Minn.