STATES FIGHT OVER EMISSIONS TAX

North Dakota utilities and government leaders resent Minnesota imposing a tax on ND-generated coal-sourced electricity. (see this related story: COAL PLANT TO OFFSET EMISSIONS)The ND legislature has allocated funds to fight Minnesota’s action in federal court. This strikes NewEnergyNews as a struggle of historic moment (though not the Sunni and the Shia'). The only thing comparable that comes to mind is the Hot Oil wars in depression-era Oklahoma and Texas, although apparently this one will be resolved by the outlaws who work in the distrcit courts. Reader comments welcomed.

N.D. panel protesting carbon dioxide tax
Jane Cole, October 6, 2007 (The Forum)

WHO
North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC) (Gov. John Hoeven, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem and Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson) and Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MPUC)

The Minnesota emissions surcharge would also apply to electricity generated from Big Stone II, a new South Dakota coal-fired power plant serving a large region of the Upper Midwest. (Thanks, Bert.) (click to enlarge)

WHAT
MPUC is planning to charge Minnesota purchasers of North Dakota coal-plant electricity a surcharge for emissions generated in its production. NDIC objects on 2 grounds.

WHEN
NDIC’s first ground for objecting is a 1997 MPUC decision, upheld by a Minnesota appeals court in 1998, that environmentalists’ call for such surcharges on out-of-state generated electricity was unfair.

WHERE
The second ground for NDIC’s objection is that North Dakota is currently running the biggest experimental emissions capture-and-sequestration project in the world.

WHY
- Minnesota’s Next Generation Energy Act, recently approved, requires this move from MPUC.
- North Dakota’s capture-and-sequestration project seeks to effectively capture the emissions at the coal-fired plant as they are created generating electricity and inject them in geologic structures like underground saline acquifers or to use them to enhance the production of failing oil wells.
- The ND legislature recently allocated a half million dollars to sue Minnesota over this issue.

And proposed new transmission would make the region more interconnected -- once they settle their differences. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- NDIC: “North Dakota has different possible responses to any future carbon dioxide regulations than Minnesota. Carbon dioxide regulation cost estimates … will not be the same in North Dakota as Minnesota.”
- ND Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem: ““The commerce clause is in the Constitution to prevent this kind of thing…It’s not that North Dakota is not willing to be part of the solution…We’re uniquely situated well into the future…”