Audio: Fargo Leader Wants Companies Targeted by #NoDAPL Activists to Come to North Dakota
Fargo City Commissioner Dave Piepkorn asks for an accounting of what the refugee resettlement in the Fargo area is costing during the Commission meeting Monday, Oct. 10, 2016. Dave Wallis / The Forum
One of the tactics of far-left environmental activists has been to target the financing of the fossil fuel industries and their related infrastructure like pipelines.
That’s why #NoDAPL protesters have been targeting Wells Fargo bank branches, because the bank is involved in financing the Dakota Access Pipeline, and it is pressure from these activists which leads local leaders such as the Minneapolis City Council seek an end to financial relationships with Wells Fargo and other banks.
But in that political assault a leader here in North Dakota sees an opportunity. Fargo City Commissioner Dave Piepkorn wants Wells Fargo to re-locate its Minneapolis operations to North Dakota.
In Fargo, specifically.
[mks_pullquote align=”right” width=”300″ size=”24″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]”It just seems like an opportunity,” he told me during a radio interview yesterday. “In North Dakota we love fossil fuels,” he added.[/mks_pullquote]
“It just seems like an opportunity,” he told me during a radio interview yesterday.
“In North Dakota we love fossil fuels,” he added.
After he heard about the Minneapolis City Council’s decision on Wells Fargo, Piepkorn asked city officials to put together a package of information about Fargo for the bank to consider. He said it won’t just be North Dakota’s attitude on things like pipelines and oil development.
“Minnesota is a high regulation, high tax state,” he told me. “North Dakota is low tax and low regulation.”
He said Wells Fargo could save big on North Dakota’s rates for worker’s compensation insurance alone. “These kind of things, they impact the bottom line,” he told me.
Nor is Piepkorn interested only in the roughly 11,000 jobs Wells Fargo could bring to North Dakota. He said an aggressive pitch to Wells Fargo could catch the attention of other companies as well.
“You don’t know who else is listening to this,” he said.
Here’s the audio:
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