Energy Tomorrow Blog
Government Uncertainty Hinders World-Class Infrastructure
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Mark Green
Posted October 5, 2016
Energizing South Dakota
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Mark Green
Posted September 23, 2016
South Dakota ranks in the bottom tier of oil and natural gas-producing states – the fortunes of geology limiting the energy-rich Bakken shale to North Dakota and Montana. Even so, South Dakota makes other important energy contributions.
Energizing South Dakota
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Reid Porter
Posted August 6, 2015
Our series highlighting the economic and jobs impact of energy in each of the 50 states continues today with South Dakota. We started the series with Virginia on June 29 and reviewed Florida, Kansas and Maryland earlier this week. All information covered in this series can be found online here, arranged on an interactive map of the United States. State-specific information across the country will be populated on this map as the series continues.
As we can see with South Dakota, the energy impacts of the states individually combine to form energy’s national economic and jobs picture: 9.8 million jobs supported and $1.2 trillion in value added.
Keystone XL: Justified by Science, Economics, Security
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Mark Green
Posted July 28, 2015
As a pending energy issue whose lack of resolution is penalizing U.S. consumers and U.S. energy security, the Keystone XL pipeline may be unsurpassed in its importance.
It’s a $5.4 billion piece of strategic energy infrastructure that unfortunately has become a political football during nearly seven years of White House delay. It’s delay not based on Keystone XL’s energy and economic merits or its climate impacts – all exhaustively analyzed by five U.S. State Department reviews (latest one here). Rather, the project has been delayed because of an extreme, off-oil agenda whose proponents made a privately financed infrastructure project that this country needs into a political symbol.
Delay Doesn’t Diminish Keystone XL’s Merits
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Mark Green
Posted July 6, 2015
Another sign of the times on the Keystone XL pipeline: South Dakota’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is weighing pipeline builder TransCanada’s request for a reissued construction permit because the company’s original permit died of old age – victimized by the White House’s failure to decide on Keystone XL despite nearly seven years of review.
That’s right. TransCanada’s first construction permit for the 314 miles of the pipeline that would cross South Dakota expired last summer. You could say the cause of death was neglect – neglect by the White House, with its Keystone XL review approaching the seven-year mark this fall.
So, TransCanada seeks a reissued permit. The PUC is scheduled to hold a public input session Monday night, followed by evidentiary hearings July 27 and Aug. 4.
A couple of points. The first is to underscore again the absurd and unfair way the White House has kept Keystone XL in suspended animation, causing a state construction permit that’s good for four years to lapse. The second is to point out that the economic and energy merits of building Keystone XL – for South Dakota and the U.S. – remain unchanged, basically unchallenged by pipeline opponents.