Say Anything

North Dakota has been making national, and even international, headlines because of our oil boom. The state has become an energy leader, and not surprisingly our politicians like to talk about that. Which is why Heidi Heitkamp brings up energy in her latest ad entitled “Gas Plant.”

(I’ll admit to chuckling for a moment at thinking the title referred to Heitkamp and not the plant she as filming at.)

Here’s the ad:

According to the Dakota Gasification Company website, their parent company Basin Electric got the stimulus funds to “help fund a largescale carbon capture demonstration at the Antelope Valley Station near Beulah, ND.” The captured carbon was to be fed into a pipeline system owned by Dakota Gasification.

Who sits on the board of directors for Dakota Gasification? Heidi Heitkamp. Who is using Dakota Gasification’s plant in her campaign ads? Heidi Heitkamp.

Heitkamp spends a lot of time trying not to talk about Barack Obama, for obvious reasons. The closer she’s tied to the president the less likely she is to win an election in North Dakota. Yet, it seems that Heitkamp can’t escape Obama and his failed policies (like the stimulus spending) even if she tries.

And it’s interesting that Heitkamp would choose, as the emblem of North Dakota’s energy success, a taxpayer-subsidized plant that puts money in her pocket. Of course, that sort of quid pro quo isn’t unusual for Heitkamp who to this day enjoys big money political contributions from the law firm of the man who she appointed as North Dakota’s legal counsel in the tobacco lawsuits. An appoint he, to this day, receives millions of dollars per year in compensation for.

Update: Per the comments below from Basin Electric, they ultimately postponed the carbon sequestration project.