The three members of the PSC are directly responsible for regulating electric and gas utilities, permitting energy projects, coal mine reclamation, telecommunications, railroads, auctions, weighing and measuring devices, gas pipeline safety and underground damage prevention.
Shame on PSC candidate Melanie Moniz for not putting in more effort. And, frankly, shame on the delegates to the Democratic-NPL convention for endorsing a candidate who didn't aspire to be anything more than a name on a ballot.
Republican Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak joins this episode of Plain Talk for a conversation that kicks off a series of debates between North Dakota's statewide candidates. Fedorchak's Democratic-NPL challenger, Melanie Moniz, declined to participate.
"When you’re dependent on the weather for generating the electricity and have less dispatchable, you’re going to have tighter markets and you’re going to have times where you have a greater threat of having to have rolling blackouts,” North Dakota Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak has said, noting that we've been too hasty in shutting down coal power.
“The public was promised the skies would be dark,” Commissioner Brian Kroshus said. “It was what people expected, and it’s not going to be occurring in some areas.”
The stirrings of the 2022 election cycle have begun, and it's time we got the lay of the land, at least as far as what the incumbents in North Dakota's statewide offices are going to do.
North Dakota regulators, lawmakers and grid operators convened at an energy summit in Fargo on Tuesday, for discussions on the state's place in an accelerating national clean energy transition.
Our government is paying utilities to replace baseload power with intermittent power like wind. Based on what the SPP had to say to the PSC, the grid operators aren't speaking up about what these changes mean for grid reliability. That's a remarkable admission.
Actual fiscal conservatives recognize prudent appropriations. The rail inspection program is cheap and provides an insurance policy against rail disruptions that could jeopardize our economy, but it probably costs more than it has to because the supposed "fiscal conservatives" in the Legislature are holding a grudge.
The Republican Party has built a solid red brick wall in the state. There’s little chance for advancement, unless one of the senior officeholders makes an unexpected decision.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe wants the Public Service Commission to ask pipeline company Energy Transfer to hand over a surge analysis and other documents relating to the risk of an oil spill.
