Author: Jim Fuglie

The North Dakota Industrial Commission, the agency which oversees oil and gas development in North Dakota, adopted Policy NDIC-PP 2.01 last Spring, a half-hearted attempt to offer some protection to “Special Places” in western North Dakota from the zealots who drill for oil and those who are supposed to be regulating them. The land and … Continue reading Meet The New “Drilling Permit Review Policy Commentary Analyst”

Here’s a quote from a well-known North Dakota politician: “Starting next year, we could suspend the individual and corporate income tax for a one-year income tax holiday and still have enough money to meet our obligations. North Dakota has a surplus so large it isn’t just a cushion, it is a mountain of pillows.” Here’s … Continue reading Time To Cut Taxes?

Mitigation. There’s a word that draws mixed reaction. Most dictionaries generally define mitigation as “the act of making a condition or consequence less severe, the process of becoming milder or gentler.” It’s a word we didn’t much find in common usage in North Dakota until the 1970s, when the Garrison Diversion project surfaced. That project … Continue reading You Can’t Mitigate Greed

Caught a rerun of the Beverly Hillbillies the other day. Then I turned on the news and learned that we've reached a milestone in North Dakota--we're producing a million barrels of oil a day--way more than old Jed Clampett could have imagined. And there's the North Dakota Petroleum Council feeding crawdads and Cajun shrimp to … Continue reading A Million Barrels A Day

About ten years ago, Ken and Norma Eberts decided to sell their Bad Lands ranch and retire. The ranch is directly across the river from the Elkhorn Ranch Site, home to our 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt. It is where he developed his famous conservation ethic, before becoming America’s greatest Conservation President. Ken and Norma knew … Continue reading The Saga of the Elkhorn Continues: What’s a FONSI?

I’m an old liberal who, my conservative friends say, “never met a tax he didn’t like.” Well, they’re pretty much right. Taxes generally do good things for people, especially those at the local level. The federal government is often another story. But that’s our own fault, for electing the wrong people sometimes, and leaving them … Continue reading Finally, A Tax I Don’t Like

Note: This article appears in the current issue of Dakota Country magazine, a monthly outdoors publication headquartered in Bismarck. I write a regular monthly article for the magazine focusing on the oil industry’s impact on the North Dakota Badlands. You can find subscription information on the magazine’s website, http://www.dakotacountrymagazine.com. I’ve shot probably half a dozen, … Continue reading Last Dance of the Sage Grouse

Two hundred years ago today, on May 17, 1814 (Syttende Mai in the Norwegian language), a young couple, Mons Olson Fuglen, and his wife, Ragnhild Knudsdatter, likely sat across the table from each other and toasted the newfound freedom and independence of their country. They may have toasted with a glass of aquavit, a traditional … Continue reading Happy Syttende Mai

Okay I’m going to get a little preachy again. It’s about the Clean Water, Wildlife and Parks Amendment (you can read the text of the proposed amendment here). You’ll remember I said I was going to sit this one out this year because I have some differences with the measure’s authors. But at least they're … Continue reading Sons of the Fathers

I’m pissed off about so many things this week I don’t know where to start. That’s what I get for taking a few weeks off to play. Things pile up. I’m about to go on a rant that will surely get me another admonishment from my friend Wayne Tanous: “Jim, lighten up. It’s spring.” Okay. … Continue reading Next: Planting Potatoes