What are the consequences when "clean" energy isn't politically clean? Two articles in North Dakota dailies have caught our interest.
At the Dickinson Press, Adam Willis reports in Environmental group calls out conflicts of interest on North Dakota energy board as $160M funding approved:
An environmental group is calling out a new arm of the North Dakota government for allegedly mismanaging its conflicts of interest when it convened last week to recommend more than $160 million in state funds for fossil fuel-sector grants and loans.
The Dakota Resource Council, a conservationist group, raised concerns about the handling of conflicts of interest on the Clean Sustainable Energy Authority in a letter sent to the state Ethics Commission and Gov. Doug Burgum on Monday, Dec. 20, in which the organization asked for more stringent rules regulating such conflicts in the future.
The letter comes as the $28 million in grants and $135 million in loans that the Clean Sustainable Energy Authority recommended last week received final approval on Monday from the North Dakota Industrial Commission, the three-member business regulatory board chaired by Gov. Doug Burgum.
The Clean Sustainable Energy Authority, which was established by lawmakers earlier this year, consists of members nominated by energy industry groups to oversee a new fund of $45 million in grants and $250 million in loans. Lawmakers created the board with the aim of kick-starting “game changing” lower-emissions energy projects in the state’s fossil fuel and agriculture sectors, which are facing mounting investor pressures to mitigate their contributions to climate change.
Among the top recipients of the Clean Sustainable Energy Authority’s inaugural funding round was a project to build a $2.8 billion natural gas-to-liquids plant in Williams County, a $1.8 billion effort to retrofit a coal gasification facility into a hub for the production of hydrogen fuel, and an early engineering study into the plans to retrofit the state's largest coal-fired power plant, Coal Creek Station, for carbon capture.
Members on the Industrial Commission unanimously approved the funding recommendations set by the Clean Sustainable Energy Authority last week. Officials left $17 million in grants and $115 million in loans untouched in the Clean Sustainable Energy fund for application rounds next year.
Conflicts of interest
Multiple appointees to the Clean Sustainable Energy Authority disclosed conflicts of interest at the start of last week’s meeting. Voting members of the board have worked in a variety of energy sector jobs, including in oil, coal, ethanol and utility co-op roles, and in each case the authority decided to allow members to vote on the projects for which they were conflicted.
Those decisions raised concerns for the Dakota Resource Council, which argued in its letter Monday that members should not have been allowed to cast votes on whether or not to fund projects that would have direct or indirect financial benefits for them or their employer.
Among the most serious conflicts, the Dakota Resource Council said, was one disclosed by Kathleen Neset, the president of an oilfield consultancy that she disclosed contracts with the company Wellspring Hydro, which the Clean Sustainable Energy Authority recommended for $1 million in grant funding. The conservationist group also highlighted the conflicts of Al Christianson, who told authority members that he sits on the board of Midwest AgEnergy, which received a $3 million grant, and works for Great River Energy, which is in the process of selling Coal Creek Station.
“It is long overdue for North Dakota to adopt strong conflict of interest rules that prevent appointed or elected officials from using their office to enrich themselves, their employer, or business interests,” wrote Scott Skokos, executive director of the Dakota Resource Council. The events that transpired at the Clean Sustainable Energy Authority meeting earlier this month “spotlight the need for rules to be developed as soon as possible,” he said.
In all, the Dakota Resource Council noted conflicts of interest disclosed by five of the authority's eight voting members, all of whom were allowed to vote. . . .
Read the rest at the Dickinson Press.
It's much the same story in Amy Sisk's Millions awarded for clean energy projects; group raises conflict of interest concerns in the Bismarck Tribune:
State regulators approved $28 million in grants and $135 million in loans Monday for six energy projects, while a watchdog group raised concerns about conflicts of interest on the clean energy board that recommended which applicants to fund.
The North Dakota Industrial Commission approved funding assistance for projects ranging from hydrogen production to lithium extraction as recommended by the Clean Sustainable Energy Authority last week.
At the energy authority's meeting last Tuesday, numerous members disclosed conflicts of interest based on their or their employers' relationships with some of the applicants.
The conflicts ranged from business consulting relationships to employers investing in applicants' projects, as well as a member sitting on an applicant's board of directors. Each time a member disclosed a conflict at the meeting, the other members decided to allow them to vote anyway.
The Dakota Resource Council took issue with the process in a letter the group sent Monday to the North Dakota Ethics Commission. Dakota Resource Council Executive Director Scott Skokos wrote that energy authority members with a conflict of interest who participate "can use their vote or technical recommendation to influence a decision that would allow money to flow to them directly, or to their company or institution directly."
The energy authority was established by the Legislature earlier this year and is tasked with vetting projects vying for funding assistance approved by lawmakers, including $45 million in grants and $250 million in loans via a line of credit from the Bank of North Dakota.
Skokos said the Ethics Commission should require the Clean Sustainable Energy Authority to follow ethical standards similar to banks by prohibiting members from voting or advising on projects in which they have a stake.
"In our view the ethics commission should adopt rules that prohibit any appointed or elected official from voting on a matter that will either directly or indirectly financially benefit them or their employer," he said. "The rules should also include penalties for individuals who fail to disclose a conflict or fail to recuse themselves" even after disclosing a conflict.
Of the eight voting members on the energy authority, the letter named five as having conflicts of interest: Kathy Neset, Al Christenson, Joel Brown, Jim Arthaud and Chris Friez. It also named technical adviser Charles Gorecki, CEO of the University of North Dakota's Energy & Environmental Research Center. Clean Sustainable Energy Authority Director Al Anderson said Gorecki's stand-in, Tom Erickson, sat out a vote earlier this month when a conflict arose because the research center was an applicant on a project involving carbon capture at Coal Creek Station. . . .
There's that. We wonder what this lackadaisical approach to conflicts of interest would do to the LCCMR in Minnesota?
Photo: The Coal Creek Station, North Dakota's largest coal-fired power plant. Contributed / Great River Energy. Via Dickinson Press.
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