The Energy 202: North Dakota Senate candidates feud over who deserves credit for lifting crude oil ban

With recent polling showing the North Dakota Senate race will be tight, there's been a heated back-and-forth between Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and state's Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp over who deserves credit for lifting the ban. Heitkamp is among the most vulnerable Senate Democrats up for reelection, and the Cook Political Report characterizes the race as a toss-up. 

It started this week when Cramer released a television ad touting the role he played in repealing the oil-export restrictions imposed in the 1970s following the oil embargo from Middle Eastern nations and the subsequent spike in gasoline prices in the United States.

Since the boom in hydraulic fracturing nationwide over the last decade, the United States does not have enough refineries to process all the sweet shale oil extracted in recent years in North Dakota. So officials there and in other oil-producing states pushed for Congress to get rid of the oil-export ban so that crude could be sold and refined abroad.

"I helped lead the repeal of the oil export ban," Cramer says in his 30-second spot. "Now, foreign markets are open so that North Dakota can deliver energy to the world."

Lifting the ban, however, is an accomplishment for which many lawmakers in both parties give Heitkamp credit. The commercial drew a quick rebuke from Heitkamp's campaign, which put out a news release claiming Cramer took "credit for something he literally never did – that is, lead on lifting the crude oil export ban."

In an interview with The Post, Heitkamp said she considers repealing the ban a signature achievement, one that she has featured in her own ads.

"It was kind of classic because all along Congressman Cramer, over and over and over again, claims to have done things that the facts don't support," said Heitkamp, who began publicly pushing for removing the ban since the summer of 2014 during a speech in Bismarck, N.D., and an appearance on CNBC’s "Squawk Box." 

"You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in Washington who worked on this issue who would say that he helped lead any of it," she added.

Cramer had co-sponsored pieces of legislation undoing the ban, beginning in late 2014.  But Heitkamp's team points out that he was eventually one of 137 House members to sign his name to the bill.

In a separate interview, Cramer countered that no single lawmaker deserves all of the credit for the passage of a law. He notes that only the House, and not the Senate, ever passed a stand-alone bill lifting the ban.

"It's just peculiar to me that she's got this insecurity about my role in something that was so clearly my role," Cramer said, "almost as though I should be punished because there are 100 people smart enough in the House of Representatives to co-sponsor a bill."

Throughout 2015, Cramer penned op-eds and gave speeches on the House floor in favor of repealing the oil-export ban. At the time, his office touted his role in convincing conservative Blue Dog Democrats in the House to support the measure.

But at the same time that year, Heitkamp was widely credited by her colleagues for helping convince other members of the Democratic caucus, leery about increasing the amount of oil the nation takes out of the ground given its contributions to climate change, to go along with it.

Without Heitkamp, "I don’t know that it would have happened," said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) in 2015, according to Bloomberg Government. Sen. Lisa Murkowksi (R-Alaska) added that Heitkamp was "just dogged in her efforts to help educate her party." 

Heitkamp and Murkowksi staff members began discussing lifting the ban shortly after the 2014 midterm election. The next year, Reps. Barton and Henry Cueller (D-Tex.) approached Heitkamp about their efforts in the House to lift the ban too.  She assured them "that she was going to help and going to lead on the Senate side," according to Cueller spokeswoman Olya Voytovich.

The crux of the compromise ultimately made between Democrats and Republicans, which came as a part of an end-of-year spending package in 2015, was a trade off between oil and renewable energy interests. In exchange for lifting the oil-export ban, the GOP-controlled Congress temporarily extended a series of much-sought tax breaks for individuals and companies that build and run wind, solar and other alternative energy generation.

With wind turbines sprouting up across North Dakota's gusty plains, both Heitkamp and Cramer characterized the compromise as a victory for the state.

Though even on that issue they traded barbs. Heitkamp suggested that her opponent's record of support for the state's wind energy industry was insufficient since he has pushed for an end to the wind subsidies that helped propel it.

"Congressman Cramer is not known as somebody who has been particularly helpful on renewable energy," she said.

In response, Cramer called lifting the ban and extending the credits "a win and a win" for the state. "What I liked about the renewable credits extension was that there's a permanent end to them, and a phase out that was negotiated with the industry itself," Cramer said. "But for that, it would have been a difficult one to swallow."

— Trump travels to storm-ravaged Carolinas: Trump crisscrossed through the Carolinas on Wednesday nearly a week after the storm, which began as Hurricane Florence, hit the region. The president handed out food at a church, toured impacted neighborhoods and spoke at a Marine Corps base where he received a briefing and praised disaster relief efforts. “Some of the hardest work is taking place right now, even though it’s nice and beautiful and sunny,” Trump said as he led a briefing with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, The Post’s Anne Gearan reports. “We will never forget your loss. We will never leave your side,” Trump told storm survivors.

In one exchange with a homeowner in North Carolina, the president gazed at a yacht that had washed up behind the house. “At least you got a nice boat out of the deal,” he joked. “They don’t know whose boat that is… What’s the law? Maybe it becomes theirs.”

— “Just a 1"? The quick downgrading of Florence from a Category 4 hurricane to a Category 1 before landfall, which encouraged some North Carolina residents to stay put, has prompted a “debate about whether the scale is overused or needs to be replaced,” The Post’s Joel Achenbach and Emily Wax-Thibodeaux report. “The hurricane categories are determined by the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which has been used by the National Hurricane Center for decades,” they write. “The scale’s greatest virtue is that it’s easy to understand…The central problem with the Saffir-Simpson scale is that — as its full name clearly states — it measures only wind. It doesn’t capture such threats as coastal storm surge and heavy rainfall or say anything about the size of a hurricane.”

— What happens when the next hurricane hits? Experts were initially concerned about how remnants of Florence may have impacted the mountainous area around Boone, N.C., a region that was mostly spared from the worst of the storm’s rains. But the fear also sparked a question about what might happen when the next hurricane hits, The Post’s Terrence McCoy reports. “The story of building in foothills and mountains prone to landslides feeds into the broader narrative of development in America,” he writes. “As the globe warms, and as natural disasters increase in frequency and ferocity, it has increasingly become clear that development is amplifying the fallout. Houston wetlands are paved over. California homes are built in wildfire-prone areas. And the Carolina coast, frequently the target of hurricanes, is heavily developed.”

— Why birdwatchers flock to hurricanes: Hurricanes can be particularly difficult for birds, who get caught in high winds and can sometimes die of exhaustion. The resulting “fallout,” as The Post’s Karin Bruilliard reports, is a sight to see for birdwatchers who travel to find out where the birds end up after a storm, which can include “seabirds on shore, shorebirds far inland, tropical birds way out of their range.” She adds, “Storm-birding, or hurricane-birding, is not for the casual birdwatcher."

— Fretting over frites: Belgian fries have shrunk after an unusually dry and hot summer in Europe stunted potato crops. Fries in Belgium that are normally three inches will lose an inch on average in the coming months, Quentin Ariès reports for The Post. “Chips served in Britain and frites in France will suffer the same fate,” he adds.

— Trump reiterates call for OPEC to reduce oil prices: In a Thursday morning tweet, the president re-upped his call for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or as he says the "OPEC monopoly," to increase production in order to lower oil prices ahead of the U.S. midterms elections.

But as The Post's Steven Mufson has pointed out before, OPEC cannot independently set oil prices because it does not have a monopoly on oil. Indeed, the United States deserves some of the blame for higher oil prices due to sanctions on Iran.

— FEMA frenzy beyond the storm: FEMA Administrator William “Brock” Long was on the verge of quitting this week as the feud with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen escalated, even as he dealt with the aftermath of Florence, The Post’s Frances Stead Sellers, William Wan, Josh Dawsey and Nick Miroff report. Though Long and Nielsen had agreed to a truce at least for the time being during the storm response effort, that mindset changed when the FEMA chief learned the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General had referred his case to federal prosecutors for a possible criminal investigation. “He felt devastated and betrayed, according to the three government officials, who had knowledge of Long’s reaction,” The Post reports, adding it was FEMA staff who convinced him to stay, according to a congressional aide.

— Meanwhile, the EPA’s Office of Inspector General announced this week it has begun a self-initiated investigation into how the agency responded to Hurricane Harvey last year. The agency is responsible for distributing the Disaster Relief Funding through FEMA following the hurricane. The office sent a letter to the agency staff on Tuesday that said the probe aims to “improve EPA business practices and accountability."

— Trump team assures gas exporters: U.S. and Chinese officials insisted energy trade between the two nations would continue in the long term even as a trade war escalates and impacts U.S. exports of natural gas, Reuters reports. U.S. and Chinese energy officials touted cooperation during an oil and gas forum in Houston on Wednesday. The conference began a day after China said it would impose a 10 percent tariff on U.S. liquefied natural gas imports.

— Enough oil, but not enough pipelines: A dearth of pipelines in the Permian Basin region in West Texas is driving oil companies out of the area, according to a new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The report “focused on the lack of pipeline ‘takeaway capacity,’ which translates to there being plenty of oil, but not enough ways to move it to refiners or export terminals,” the Washington Examiner reports, noting the agency spotted a trend in investments from 45 publicly-traded oil companies.

— A pressure problem: The Massachusetts residents impacted by the gas explosion last week may be waiting weeks or even months to regain necessities like hot water and heat, Bloomberg News reports. The pressure surge that led to the explosion likely “damaged the system’s antiquated network of pipes and could require lengthy testing and repair" because much of the system is made of brittle cast iron.

Lawyers have filed a class-action suit against Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, “claiming that the company’s negligence forced residents out of more 8,600 homes, leaving them without shelter for days while officials worked to ensure their safety upon return,” The Post’s Karen Weintraub and Frances Stead Sellers report.

Today

• The German Marshall Fund holds a roundtable on the digital energy nexus.
• National Journal hosts a discussion on the changing energy grid.

Coming Up

• The Heritage Foundation holds an event on “The Fuel Cell Corporate Scandal in Delaware” on Friday.

— “You have to be a good shot”: A 73-year-old Texas mayor earned her 15 minutes of fame when she fired one shot to kill a 12-foot alligator on her property she believes ate her miniature horse, reports Karin Brulliard.