Pam Gulleson Really Doesn’t Like That North Dakota Is Defending Its Rights In PSC Lawsuit

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Written By:
Rob Port

Aug 29, 2012
11:02am

Yesterday US House candidate Kevin Cramer published a guest post here on Say Anything applauding a ruling by the federal government allowing the State of North Dakota to join in the defense against a lawsuit filed by far-left environmental groups.

In their lawsuit, the Sierra Club and the (taxpayer-funded) Dakota Resource Council allege unethical activity by Public Service Commissioners Brian Kalk and Kevin Cramer in accepting contributions from people working in the industries they regulate. They are suing Kalk and Cramer specifically, and not the State of North Dakota, but they ask in their suit for North Dakota’s local control over surface mining to be removed by the federal government.

Because of that last part, the State of North Dakota requested that they be made party to the case, and a federal judge agreed while seeming to insinuate in his ruling that the lawsuit itself was mere frivolity (read the judge’s order here).

But liberal House candidate Pam Gulleson is outraged that the state would dare move to protect its local control, even going so far as to inexplicably put scare quotes around the word “decision” in her outrageously outraged press release on the matter:

DICKINSON, ND – U.S. House Candidate Pam Gulleson responded to Kevin Cramer’s comments concerning a federal judge granting the North Dakota Public Service Commission’s Motion to Intervene in the Sierra Club’s lawsuit against the U.S. Secretary of the Interior. Gulleson issued the following statement:

“This ‘decision’ has absolutely nothing to do with the merits of the case, and has nothing to do with the unethical nature and potential illegality of the campaign contributions that Kevin Cramer took from parties which had interests in the Public Service Commission regulatory proceedings, where he serves as a commissioner. This does not change the fact that Mr. Cramer’s actions have put the state’s authority to regulate coal mining and reclamation in jeopardy or that the defense in this case is costing North Dakota taxpayers many thousands of dollars. The remedy is really simple. If Mr. Cramer would simply return the unethical contributions or recuse himself from decision making in the cases that concern his contributors, the entire state could move on from this fiasco.”

The decision had everything to do with the merits of the case. The Sierra Club is infamous for filing lawsuits all around the country seeking to end local regulation of environmental issues. This is no different. The moment the Sierra Club and the Dakota Resource Council made North Dakota’s local control of surface mining an issue in this case, they invited the state of North Dakota along for the ride.

As for Gulleson’s convenient position on supposedly “unethical” contributions, it’s an absurd standard. Gulleson herself, while eager to be elected to Congress and work on the farm bill, certainly isn’t turning down contributions from interests (like her old employer the North Dakota Farmer’s Union) in the crop insurance industry. Which is fine by me.

We are a nation founded on the idea that those who are governed should get a say in who governs them. Gulleson, it seems, would be just fine with blocking contributions from people who want to build coal mines while leaving the door open to contributions from people who want to close down coal mines.

That shows a rather despicable lack of respect for the concept of free speech and the democrat process.