Cap & Trade Intentionally Targets North Dakotans for Higher Prices

By Alan Anderson, Vice President, Government Affairs

North Dakota is now the front line the Cap & Trade battleground.  For example, environmental groups are buying television ads, targeting our Senators, hoping to pressure them into voting against our interests. Notably, these ads make absolutely no mention of how much this legislation will cost North Dakotans and every other American.

Cap & Trade is designed to make North Dakota fuels cost more so that we use less.  That means raising our cost of getting to work, school, church, and the store.  Even if they mean well, politicians from California and Massachusetts just don’t understand how North Dakotans live.  It’s clear that they are, nonetheless, ready and willing to make you and I pay an additional 77 cents per gallon, forever.  Even if this somehow makes sense for folks in Beverly Hills and Boston, Cap & Trade is flat-out wrong here, especially when no improvement in greenhouse gas emissions will be required or assured  from nations like China and India.  China’s CO2 emissions exceed America’s, and India’s are rapidly rising.  North Dakota farmers, families, miners, refiners and oil-jobbers should not be forced to sacrifice with higher fuel costs, lost jobs and a negative impact to their standard of living for little or no environmental benefit from what is undeniably a worldwide problem.   
 
North Dakotans should not be required by Californians or New Englanders to pay so much more for their ill-conceived and costly scheme.  There are better, less expensive ways for our country to address climate change than the current Cap & Trade bill.

Senator Dorgan has shown the courage to make a stand for North Dakotans and every other American by opposing Cap & Trade on a variety of well-reasoned concerns.  Those that want to pass Cap & Trade, no matter the cost, have targeted him, and are targeting you.  We need to again thank Senator Dorgan for his steady insight and resolve by letting him know that we agree with his assessment of this scheme. 

Cap & Trade costs too much.  It hurts North Dakota’s mining, agricultural, and petroleum industries, as well as all consumers who depend on the goods and services that are supported by these industries... that is every single person in North Dakota.