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A new year brings accomplishments and a fighting spirit

The work must go on.

Basin Electric Power Cooperative - February 16, 2011

As Joy and I were driving home during the New Year’s holiday, I drove past the North Dakota State Capitol building and saw the numbers “2011” boldly illuminated on the building. This tradition of our state reminds me of my annual tradition. At year’s end, I look at what we’ve accomplished – personally and professionally. Personally, my family and especially my grandchildren continue to grow and amaze me. They are like little sponges with remarkable curiosity. When I look at Basin Electric’s accomplishments in 2010, I see a lot of impressive feats as well.

Our newest coal-based plant, the Dry Fork Station, went from a framed structure to a Basin blue power plant, one that will be operational in the coming months. The Deer Creek Station, our first combined cycle gas unit, is taking shape in Eastern South Dakota. We celebrated our first generation resource in the state of Montana with the Culbertson Generation Station. We were joined by Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer who shared his thoughts and appreciation for the cooperatives in his state. Our Minot wind projects celebrated their first birthday in December, and construction work is moving at a rapid pace at our Crow Lake Wind Project in Central South Dakota.

We should celebrate these accomplishments. But, just as construction hasn’t stopped, our efforts in other areas must not either.

While we’ve seen bad climate change bills fail this past year, we’re now faced with a freight train called EPA. And while we’ve made great strides in coalition building on energy and environmental policy positions with both the membership and our other utility friends, we have yet to see any meaningful movement on a comprehensive national energy policy. Lastly, though we celebrated a victory against BNSF on the captive shipper issue, they’re now trying to pass their premiums from the Berkshire Hathaway acquisition onto their customers.

The work must go on.

I showed a slide at our annual meeting of all the impending regulations facing coal and the accompanying timelines. It’s an ugly, messy diagram. Our internal SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) team, which I discussed in the last issue of the magazine, is busy studying the implications and related costs of each of these regulations. And, while we study them, we’re not being quiet. We’ve submitted countless pages of comments for several of these proposed rules. Further, we’ve engaged our membership and employees, challenging them to do the same. The most recent example was EPA’s target on coal ash and its desire to regulate it under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) as a hazardous waste.

This rule would have tremendous implications for our facilities and employees. I’m pleased that, through NRECA’s Take Action Network site, Basin Electric contributed the second most comments of electric co-ops on the issue. But we must not stop there. Extreme environmental groups have waged a coordinated attack on coal. Just as they’ve mobilized hundreds of thousands of people into action, we must harness our grassroots and be the voice of reason. Electric cooperatives have some of the best environmental records of the industry. We can’t afford NOT to engage in this.

Basin Electric has long said that reasonable climate change legislation is preferable to EPA regulation. But, I think we need to take a step further. This nation has lacked a solid and comprehensive national energy policy for far too long. Before we address climate change, we need to decide how wind, solar, natural gas, coal, biomass, conservation and efficiencies fit into our national energy picture. I believe developing a well-considered energy policy is the reasonable thing to do, rather than creating a patchwork of regulations that often overlap and lead to more confusion.

We’ve taken many steps this past year to get closer to a national energy policy. We’ve spoken with members of Congress; initiated and participated in letter-writing campaigns; and forged valuable partnerships. We must continue our pursuit of a comprehensive energy policy in 2011. Nothing happens overnight. This is a process, and ultimately it will lead to a destination. We must be patient, but we must be persistent.

We know that persistence pays off. Just look at our rail victory against BNSF that began in October 2004. That, too, was a process, but in the end, we came out as victors. Now we have another challenge with the BNSF acquisition premium issue. What do we do? Keep fighting.

I wish you all the very best for 2011 and hope it is filled with good health, successful endeavors and a fighting spirit – all mixed with a little good luck. Remember, BE SAFE.

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