Energy-rich communities across the country depend heavily on the success of the oil and gas industry for their local budgets to fund schools, infrastructure, hospitals, and other necessary programs. This administrations’ heavy-handed approach to overregulating the sector in order to please their eco-left supporters threatens the billions of dollars the industry contributes to local economies across the country. Geoff Simon, executive director of the Western Dakota Energy Association, writes in Inforum on the drastic effects this would have on North Dakota specifically: The oil and natural gas industry helps educate our kids. A portion of oil and gas tax revenue goes into…

Leaders in energy-rich states like North Dakota are wary of the future for the oil and gas industry under a Biden administration. Biden’s $2 trillion climate plan includes a fracking ban on federal land and moving the country to net-zero emissions by 2050. The Bismarck Tribune reports: Such efforts could have significant ramifications in North Dakota, where more than 1 million barrels per day of oil are pumped out of the ground and abundant lignite coal and wind resources generate so much electricity that half travels across power lines to other states. … Of the state’s 8,000 drilling units, 3,370…

According to The Hill: Plummeting oil prices caused by a Saudi-Russian feud and the coronavirus outbreak may lead to a decline in fracking, the controversial practice that has fueled the domestic energy revolution in the U.S. … Oil sank to $23 from a high of $53 dollars in mid-February, far below the “break even” point that producers need to drill new wells to maintain supply, and with volumes rapidly diminishing at existing wells. “These wells are more expensive, they produce a larger portion of all their oil and gas that first year,” said Lynn Helms, director of North Dakota’s Department…