Free Republic

Clarity on First Amendment as result of Alliance Defending Freedom letter prompts quick change Wednesday, May 08, 2013 Attorney sound bites:  Jon Scruggs #1  |  Jon Scruggs #2COOPERSTOWN, N.D. — One day after receiving a letter from Alliance Defending Freedom, a North Dakota high school and its district agreed to allow a student’s pro-life poster that was part of a class assignment to be placed back on the walls of the school. Griggs County Central School District agreed to the change on Friday after receiving the Alliance Defending Freedom letter Thursday about the poster, which the school had removed after...

An energy company has received approval to start construction of a new natural gas processing plant in northwestern North Dakota. The Oneok company says the plant will cost $160 million and be able to process 100 million cubic feet of natural gas each day. Oneok is based in Tulsa, Okla.

While Texas and North Dakota's boom in oil production have been well-publicized, five other western U.S. states made a notable contribution to the growth in U.S. oil production since 2010, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported Tuesday. Onshore oil production, including crude oil and lease condensate, grew by over 2 million barrels of oil per day (bopd), or 64 percent, in the U.S. Lower 48 from February 2010 to February 2013. Production in the Williston Basin in North Dakota and Texas' Eagle Ford play and Permian Basin outpaced other regions. However, gains in other Lower 48 states added up...

Flame-resistant overalls are the latest reason to be optimistic about America’s future. The US shale boom is creating plenty of new jobs in the oil and gas industry, but it’s having a number of knock-on effects as well. Energy-intensive industries have been bolstered by the influx of cheap natural gas, for example. And a new sector has appeared to help support the rapidly growing number of oil and gas workers in America. Firms that feed, house, and, as the the WSJ reports, clothe these workers are capitalizing on this energy revolution, too. Back in 2010, a spate of refinery accidents...

FARGO, N.D. -- North Dakota is promoting its business climate at Minnesota's expense, and some politicians east of the Red River are not happy about it. The Greater North Dakota Chamber has started a campaign that mocks proposals in the Minnesota Legislature, including bills that would raise certain taxes. A chamber release said Minnesota politicians are "making a strong case for business to come across the border to North Dakota." The first billboard went up Thursday along Interstate 94 in Moorhead, Minn., which borders Fargo. It reads "North Dakota" on the top line and "Open for Business" on the bottom....

The Three Affiliated Tribes have broken ground for a $450 million oil refinery on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in northwestern North Dakota The Thunder Butte Petroleum Services Refinery will be constructed in four phases over two years. A ceremonial groundbreaking was held Wednesday, after more than a decade of planning, according to The Forum and the Minot Daily News. Construction is expected to begin in August. “We grew up poor. We were lucky if we had a pair of clean overalls,” Tribal Chairman Tex Hall said. “But our parents made sure we went to school and got educated. They...

"Superficial" "A source close to the Senate negotiations [says] that two senators who voted against the background check bill would vote for it after minor, superficial changes." - Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC, May 6, 2013ACTION: Senators who voted pro-gun last month are under intense pressure - by Senate Democrats and Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s hit ads - to switch their votes.  We need to keep applying the heat and let them know that gun owners are ready to help in any Senate campaign, no matter which state, to defeat ANY SENATOR who votes for gun control.LEGISLATIVE UPDATE FROM WASHINGTON, DC. It’s...

Energy companies are lining up for their shot to drill in the Dakotas and Montana after a new government report revealed that a massive geological formation stretching across the states contains twice the oil and three times the amount of natural gas than was originally believed. While the new estimate is drawing smaller companies to the game, the larger players like Schlumberger, Halliburton and Continental Resources are pushing forward with ambitious multi-year plans to stake their claim in the industry. Continental recently announced a five-year plan to triple its production by 2017. The company’s growth is based on success in...

Don’t expect the energy boom in Montana and the Dakotas to end anytime soon. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the formations below these three states hold double the amount of oil and triple the amount of natural gas than was believed five years ago. National Journal reports: The formations, called Bakken and Three Forks, span much of western North Dakota, the northern tip of South Dakota and the northeastern tip of Montana. The last time the United States Geological Survey assessed this area for its oil and gas reserves was in 2008. But that assessment did not...

Democratic leaders are wooing staunchly pro-gun candidates to run in pivotal Senate races at the same time they are discussing a strategy for bringing gun control legislation back up for debate. The two-pronged effort has prompted Republicans to accuse the Senate Democratic leadership of hypocrisy, but Democrats say it is simply smart politics. The question is whether two of the Democrats’ most promising potential candidates in Montana and South Dakota will pay a price for the leadership’s political maneuverings in Washington. Or will recruiting candidates who do not support President Obama’s gun control agenda have any effect on Democratic fundraising...

On Tuesday, North Dakota’s governor signed a bill into law banning abortions after 20 weeks, when an unborn baby begins to feel pain. This comes just one month after he signed landmark pro-life legislation making it the first state to prohibit both sex-selection abortions and abortions for genetic abnormalities. “We were very pleased he signed it, and that the North Dakota Legislature has passed a number of bills protecting the most vulnerable,” Tom Freier, president of the North Dakota Family Alliance, said after the governor signed the bill. “Over the course of several years, we’ve worked hard to put in...

The Republican plan to block debate on Senate Bill 649, which requires background checks on almost all gun purchases and transfers, failed spectacularly Thursday morning when sixteen Republican Senators joined almost all of the Democrats to vote in favor opening debate on the bill. Among those voting to defeat the filibuster were 9 Democrats with “A” ratings from the National Rifle Association, and 12 A-rated Republicans (out of 16 Republican “ayes”). Two Democrats, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK), joined the majority of Republican Senators who tried to prevent debate, much less a vote, on the bill....

Senate votes on climate change and the Keystone XL oil pipeline laid bare divisions among Democrats — and underscored why the White House, not Congress, will be where the critical climate decisions reside in President Obama’s second term.Several votes during the freewheeling debate over a nonbinding budget plan provided a political barometer of where the chamber, including vulnerable Democrats, stand on the topics. Advocates of the proposed pipeline scored a symbolic victory Friday when 62 lawmakers voted for an amendment backing the project to bring oil from Canadian tar sands projects to Gulf Coast refineries. Seventeen Democrats supported Sen....

Mid-Continent Crude Oil Markets Continue to Adjust to Rapid Rise in Bakken Production The differential between West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and North Dakota's Bakken crudes continues to fluctuate, reflecting both production growth and changes in oil transportation capacity. Bakken crude sold at a $25-per-barrel discount to WTI in early 2012 and rose to a $5-per-barrel premium last September, before again being discounted below WTI this winter. So far this year, the gap between Bakken and WTI prices has narrowed, and once again, the Bakken price has risen above the WTI price, albeit modestly (Figure 1). West Texas Intermediate prices are...

I am proud to be a resident of North Dakota for various reasons. One of the primary reasons is that on Tuesday, Gov. Jack Dalrymple signed three pro-life bills into law, thus making our state the one that most clearly articulates the self-evident truth asserted in our nation’s Declaration of Independence: that all humans “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Rep. Alex Looysen, R- Jamestown, expressed this truth well with his words recently quoted in various North Dakota newspapers: “Let’s stand up for those that can’t...

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., responded sharply today to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s TV ad campaign targeting senators who may be reluctant to support pending gun control legislation. Bloomberg is personally financing the campaign in 13 states, including North Dakota, where he believes senators, Republicans and Democrats, need pressure from constituents to vote for requiring background checks for all gun purchases. Of the roughly $10 million aimed at boosting support for the legislation across the country, about $156,000 is to be spent in North Dakota. “North Dakota continues to have one the highest rates of gun ownership and lowest...

Former National Rifle Association president Sandra Froman told a group of UND law students Thursday that the rate of gun violence rises with a population’s diversity. “That fact is true throughout the rest of the country,” she said. “Countries that have homogeneous populations tend to have lower crime rates with guns.” Froman, who now sits on NRA’s board of directors, was taking part in an afternoon debate at UND’s School of Law with philosophy professor and “Why?” radio host Jack Russell Weinstein, who didn’t let the comment slide. The reasons behind crime are complex, he said. Students who live in...

RALEIGH, N.C. - 9 On Your Side has new information about the investigations of voter fraud in our state. 5 people in North Carolina are under investigation for possible voter fraud. The State Board of Elections says they are registered in both our state and in Florida. Voter Integrity Project of NC has researched election records. The executive director there tells 9 On Your Side the organization has every reason to believe this is just the tip of the iceberg. The group reports it found more than 300 people who appear to be registered in Florida and North Carolina. We...

One of two new refineries being built in North Dakota broke ground this week. The 20,000-barrel-per-day (bbl/d) Dakota Prairie facility is scheduled to be built in 20 months. The impetus for the state's second and third refineries is the rapid increase in demand for diesel fuel and kerosene for trucking and industrial use within the state. Much of the increase in demand has been fueled by the boom in crude oil production from the new wells in the Bakken Formation in North Dakota's northwest corner. The demand for these middle distillates rose 80% in North Dakota from 2009 to 2012,...

North Dakota didn’t set out to become the abortion debate's new epicenter. It happened by accident, after a legislative caucus that once vetted abortion bills languished, leaving lawmakers to propose a flurry of measures—some cribbed from Wikipedia—without roadblocks. … Lawmakers on Friday took a step toward outlawing abortion altogether in the state by passing a so-called personhood resolution that says a fertilized egg has the same right to life as a person. The House’s approval sends the matter to voters, who will decide whether to add the wording to the state’s constitution in November 2014. It’s one of several anti-abortion...

North Dakota lawmakers on Friday approved a state referendum for this fall on a constitutional amendment that, if passed, would effectively block abortion by holding that life begins at conception. In a 57-35 vote, the House followed the Senate’s action and approved the referendum that now goes before the voters on the November ballot. Groups backing abortion rights said they will fight the referendum and, if needed, in the courts as well. The action is the latest in a series of moves by North Dakota lawmakers to limit and, in some cases, even eliminate abortions. Lawmakers have passed bills that...

Today, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that 10 states will receive funding to turn around their persistently lowest-achieving schools through the Department's School Improvement Grant (SIG) program. Four of the states will receive awards to run a new competition for previously unfunded schools, and six states will receive continuation funds for the third year of implementing a SIG model. The states receiving new awards are: Indiana—$9.2 million; Nebraska—$2.6 million; Colorado—$5.2 million; and Louisiana—$9.6 million. The states receiving continuation awards are: Alaska—$1.5 million; Iowa—$3.0 million; North Dakota—$1.2 million; Oklahoma—$5.5 million; Texas—$49.7 million; and Wyoming—$1.1 million. "When schools fail, our...

North Dakota lawmakers who approved what would be some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the U.S. are now considering outlawing all abortions. The “personhood” measures would ban abortions by defining human life as beginning with conception. It’s drawing opposition from some doctors who say it could cause problems for infertile couples seeking to use in vitro fertilization to conceive, but supporters insist that’s addressed in the legislation. The state Senate passed two personhood measures last month, and the House could vote as soon as Tuesday. One of the bills would make the proposal a state law and another...

On March 15, the North Dakota senate approved a bill that prevents abortions from being performed once a developing child’s heartbeat is detected in the mother’s womb. This heartbeat can usually be heard “six to seven weeks into a pregnancy,” so it’s after that point that abortions will be prohibited in the state if Gov. Jack Dalrymple signs the bill. Besides protecting life once a heartbeat is detected, North Dakota lawmakers passed a bill prohibiting “sex-selective abortions and abortions based on a diagnosis of genetic abnormality.” Until this current pro-life push by North Dakota lawmakers, the most significant abortion ban...

It's no secret that North Dakota has been in the middle of an oil boom since about 2008, but a new chart from the North Dakota Industrial Commission, Department of Mineral Resources, shows just how steep the increase has been. As of 2006, the state was only producing about 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day, putting it on par with other mid-tier oil producing states like Kansas, Colorado and Montana. But new hydraulic fracturing techniques and the opening of the massive Bakken formation to drilling changed all that, and as of January 2013 the state was producing an average...

North Dakota’s Senate passed a pair of anti-abortion measures Friday that are considered to be the most restrictive in the nation, including one that would prevent women from having an abortion based on a genetic defect. The measures now to go to Republican Gov. Jack Dalrymple who has indicated he will sign them. The new state laws are even more strict than one finalized last week in Arkansas that would make the procedure illegal after 12 weeks of pregnancy. One North Dakota measure would prevent women from having abortions based on a genetic defect, like Down syndrome. The other would...

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senators is backing a bill that makes permanent a more relaxed set of U.S. Department of Agriculture nutrition guidelines for students’ breakfasts and lunches in the nation’s schools. The Sensible School Lunch Act was recently introduced by Sens. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Mark Pryor, D-Ark. The act fixes the latest rulings on meat and grain servings made in December by the Department of Agriculture. It will “make sure that schools are able to provide healthy, nutritious school lunches” and breakfasts, Hoeven said Tuesday. “But at the same time, that we have the common sense...

EIA thinks technology will continue to drive production in 2013, but peak by ’14 - - - - - The current boom in unconventional oil will eventually become a powerful echo, but only after technological improvements have run their course, according to a U.S. Energy Information Administration analysis of the drivers behind domestic crude oil production. When that “inflection point” occurs will depend on many factors, but the report from the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy suggests it could be felt as soon as 2014. Between 2011 and 2012, domestic oil production increased by 790,000 barrels per...

The State Department released preliminary findings of a new environmental impact study surrounding the controversial Keystone XL pipeline on Friday, but made no clear recommendation as to whether the the pipeline should be held up for environmental or economic reasons. Reporters trying to make sense of the nearly 2,000 pages of findings were flummoxed by one senior State Department official who stressed that the document “does not come out one way or the other and make a decision” about whether the U.S. should or should not go forward with the project. Years of heated debate have surrounded the proposed 1,700...

As lawmakers debate whether North Dakota’s oil taxes need tweaking, a recent study suggests the state sits in the middle of major oil-producing states when it comes to oil taxation. The Republican-controlled Senate on Tuesday approved a bill that would reduce the state’s oil extraction tax rate from 6.5 to 4.5 percent, despite strong objections from Democrats who argue the tax cut is unnecessary. The lower rate approved in Senate Bill 2336 would take effect for new oil wells drilled starting in 2017, or if the average statewide daily production exceeds 1 million barrels per day for three consecutive months,...

Most Californians may not realize it, but there's a fortune buried underneath our feet. Stretching from Los Angeles to San Francisco, the Monterey Shale formation is estimated to hold 15.5 billion barrels of recoverable oil (which accounts for two-thirds of the recoverable shale oil in the United States) and has become a topic of rapidly growing interest in the oil industry.By comparison, the Bakken formation of North Dakota, which single-handedly saved that state from the effects of the recession, holds 4 billion barrels of oil. Californians could be bidding their budgetary woes goodbye, but instead many are steeling themselves for what...

Yesterday, we published a presentation by oil analyst Arthur Berman suggesting the potential of fracking to extract fossil fuels buried in shale rock has been way overhyped. But there are many who would argue that the assumptions Berman makes are off the mark.Using data from the Energy Information Administration and Canadian energy consultancy ITG, we have put together the counter-argument to Berman's thesis.

SHALE exploitation in North Dakota has lifted incomes and brought unemployment down to 3.2% of the workforce, the lowest level in the country. Californians are rarely found looking longingly towards the Midwest. But the revelation that their state, with unemployment at 9.8% and America’s highest poverty rate, may be sitting on the largest deposit of shale oil in the continental United States has led some to wonder if their salvation lies 10,000 feet (3,000 metres) beneath them.California has been an oil state since 1865. Thanks largely to reserves that can still be tapped by conventional means, it remains the third-largest...

The North Dakota Senate snuffed out a measure Wednesday aimed at curbing the oil industry’s practice of wasting natural gas as an unwanted byproduct of oil production. The bill, arguably the toughest to date against the oil industry in North Dakota, was defeated 34-13. Sen. Tim Mathern’s measure would have cut an exemption commonly used by oil companies claiming an economic hardship of connecting a well to a natural gas pipeline. Oil companies in North Dakota can flare natural gas for a year without paying taxes or royalties on it. After that, companies can request an extension because of the...

Yesterday I wrote about North Dakota Democrats throwing a hissy fit over Republicans voting down a $1.2 million appropriation to give school kids a third helping of milk or juice (media reports have claimed it was only a $500,000 appropriation, but that’s inaccurate as the bill shows). In their attacks on Republicans for killing the bill, Democrats have cast themselves as the defenders of the state children. The Democrats have even taken the sanctimonious step of putting little milk cartons on their legislative desks to collect donations to pay for the milk (we’re just supposed to ignore that almost nobody...

Energy: The former Golden State is floating in debt, even as it sits on two-thirds of America's shale oil reserves locked in a formation four times the size of the one that sparked North Dakota's economic boom. North Dakota is now the largest oil producer in the country after Texas with a monthly oil output of about 20 million barrels. North Dakota's oil boom accounts for 11% of U.S. oil production, and it is the impetus behind the state's $3.8 billion surplus and an unemployment rate of just 3.2%, the lowest in the nation. California is not running a surplus,...

The US shale boom has led some to predict that it will overtake Saudi Arabia as world’s largest oil and gas producer by 2020, thanks to the massive reserves found in plays such as the Bakken Shale of North Dakota, the Marcellus Shale in New York, and the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas; even the newly discovered Tuscaloosa Shale formation in Louisiana holds large potential. However there is a new shale formation that has been discovered in West Texas which could dwarf all others being drilled in the US at the moment. The play is known as the Cline Shale...

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., defied the odds in November when she won the closest senate race in the country, and now that she's arrived in Washington, she's defiant as ever. But now, instead of defying the pollsters, she's defying the Democratic caucus by taking divergent opinions on issues central to the President Obama's second term agenda, ranging from gun control to the environment. Heitkamp, who says growing the economy is her top priority, is concerned that the president is changing his focus to issues like climate change and gun control. "I think, you know the one thing that has gotten...

North Dakota lawmakers are looking to get tough on potential direct actions taken by President Barack Obama, proposing a bill to grant the Legislature the right to review, approve or reject any executive order issued by the president. House Bill 1428 is designed to give legislators the power to suspend orders implemented unless the orders have been upheld by a vote of Congress. Rep. Bob Skarphol (R-Tioga) is a co-sponsor of the bill and said some members of the Legislature don’t believe in governing by executive order. He said there are checks and balances ingrained into the government for a...

The Sierra Club has announced its approval for a "one-time" use of civil disobedience. The civil disobedience is intended to step up their efforts to oppose the Keystone pipeline. Many of the other groups opposing Keystone have been engaging in civil disobedience as a tactic, including arson-based ecoterrorism. This will be the first time in the Sierra Club's history that they have approved violating the law.

The Seaway Crude Oil Pipeline Co. has taken the biggest step so far toward reducing transportation bottlenecks between the U.S. Midwest and the Gulf Coast, setting the stage for significant changes by mid-2014 that will bring relief to Bakken producers. The 50-50 joint venture by affiliates of Enbridge and Enterprise Products Partners has completed a reversal of 500 miles of the Seaway system, increasing the flow between Cushing, Okla., and Houston to 400,000 barrels per day from 150,000 bpd. The partnership is now targeting 850,000 bpd by the first quarter of 2014 when it introduces a new twin line parallel...

North Dakota has now recorded back-to-back months in which the massive Bakken petroleum system has failed to live up to production expectations. Reasons behind lackluster performances in October and especially in November have led the state’s top oil man, Lynn Helms, to issue a “wake-up call” for those who believed the good times would continue unabated. “We’ve gotten very used to the increase in production, almost regardless of what was happening out there,” Helms, director of the Department of Mineral Resources, said in a Jan. 11 conference call. For the first time in 19 months, North Dakota’s oil production declined...

Early last year in Williston there had been too much attention focused on the local gentlemen's clubs for any strippers to talk with me about what they earned, but apparently that's changed. John Eligon from The New York Times just visited the North Dakota boomtown and one visiting dancer says she often earns more than $1,000 a night. That may be a conservative estimate as word last year was dancers were making two to three times that amount, but club owners were concerned with IRS attention and prohibited employees from speaking to the press. With nearly two men for every...

While Barack Obama's America limps along economically, North Dakota has been booming: "The rich shale oil formation deep below the rolling pastures here has attracted droves of young men to work the labor-intensive jobs that get the wells flowing and often generate six-figure salaries," the New York Times reports from Williston. But not all is well in the Peace Garden State, which turns out to be a place where the men are men and the women are nervous: "Many [local women] said they felt unsafe. Several said they could not even shop at the local Walmart without men following them...

On a dance floor in Williston, N.D., where single men say there are not enough single women. WILLISTON, N.D. — Christina Knapp and a friend were drinking shots at a bar in a nearby town several weeks ago when a table of about five men called them over and made an offer. They would pay the women $3,000 to strip naked and serve them beer at their house while they watched mixed martial arts fights on television. Ms. Knapp, 22, declined, but the men kept raising the offer, reaching $7,000. “I said I make more money doing my job than...

Bismarck, ND - Several states have adopted laws and others have introduced legislation to protect gun owners from any potential firearm ban. North Dakota lawmakers are also ready to draft gun protection legislation. In a state where hunting plays a large role in recreation, the talk of gun control is especially upsetting. Just days into the legislative session, it's a topic North Dakotan's are telling their lawmakers to take action on. Minot Representative Roscoe Streyle is drafting a bill to submit next week. "We can't stop the feds from doing what they're going to do but what we can do...

Phillips 66 has begun shipping crude by rail from North Dakota to a refinery in New Jersey in an effort estimated at more than $1 billion. The company said this week it had signed a five-year deal with Global Partners to move oil produced in the Bakken shale play to its Bayway refinery. The Bayway refinery, the largest on the east coast, is already receiving crude through the deal, which will move 91 million barrels of oil over the contract term, or about 50,000 barrels a day, Phillips 66 spokesman Dennis Nuss said. The refinery is expected to receive crude...

“I think you need to put everything on the table,” Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D, told ABC News‘ George Stephanopoulos this past Sunday, “but what I hear from the administration – and if the Washington Post is to be believed – that’s way, way in extreme of what I think is necessary or even should be talked about. And it’s not going to pass.” The Washington Post article Heitkamp was referring to, reported that President Obama would soon seek to pass legislation “that would require universal background checks for firearm buyers, track the movement and sale of weapons through a national...

The newly sworn in freshman Democratic senator from North Dakota told George Stephanopoulos on his “This Week” ABC News program that President Barack Obama’s agenda to further restrict gun rights will not pass Congress. “Well, I think you need to put everything on the table, but what I hear from the administration — and if the Washington Post is to be believed — that’s way — way in extreme of what I think is necessary or even should be talked about–and it’s not going to pass,” said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), who defeated former Republican Rep. Rick Berg by 2,994...

The White House Is Planning A Major Push On Guns, And One Democratic Senator Is Already Calling It 'Extreme' Brett LoGiuratoJan. 6, 2013, 1:40 PMThe White House's task force led by Vice President Joe Biden is considering expansive proposals to tackle the nation's gun violence, something that is already drawing early condemnation from even Democratic lawmakers. The Washington Post reported Sunday that the group headed by Biden is preparing to go far beyond a simple reinstatement of the expired assault weapons ban: A working group led by Vice President Biden is seriously considering measures backed by key law enforcement leaders...