Source: United States Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
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BISMARCK – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, joined Larry Kudlow on Fox Business to discuss North Dakota’s leadership in the oil, gas, and refining industries, as well as its investment-friendly business climate. Excerpts and full video are below.
On North Dakota’s Strong State Management:
“North Dakota is a place where it’s easier to permit energy projects than it is other places. One of the reasons EPA doesn’t have quite the reach in North Dakota as it has in other places is because North Dakota – surprise, surprise – does meet, and has always met, all ambient air quality standards as prescribed by the EPA. In other words, ‘leave us alone, we’ll keep our own air clean, our own water clean, our own land rich,’ and we’ll do just fine because we live here and we love it.”
North Dakota’s Significance to the Oil, Gas Industries:
“We are literally at the center of the North American continent. We have a close relationship with our Canadian friends. Many of our pipelines go in and out of Canada, in some cases carrying Canadian crude, in some cases carrying Bakken crude.
“The original Hess plant, a gas plant, has been in Tioga, North Dakota since the 50s when the first oil well was discovered by Hess up there. So, we have been in this a long time. We are pioneers. We are pretty self-reliant for the most part, but there’s lots to consider. North Dakota is the right place to invest because we have the right regulatory climate, legal climate, tax climate to do it – and maybe we even do some more with taxes, considering how well the state is managed and run.”
On EPA’s Ever-Stringent Proposed Emissions Standards:
“The reason the EPA is doing it the way they’re doing it — by cutting in half the emission standard per vehicle for a fleet, which is impossible unless you change your fleet over to electric, or most of your fleet other than big, heavy vehicles — is because it’s illegal for them to name the fuel source. They can’t switch the fuels. The Supreme Court ruled on that with the Clean Air Act, so this is the only way for them to trick the system.”