Fuel shortages prompted study

Robert Johnson apparently has a short memory.

It was just a couple of years ago that we learned what happens when we have a shortage of gasoline and diesel in North Dakota. In the summer of 2007, the shutdown of some refineries led to a fuel shortage in our state, and North Dakotans ended up paying the second-highest price in the nation for gasoline.

It's probably easy for Johnson to sit and take potshots at Sen. Dorgan, but Dorgan was the one who jumped on this issue to find a solution. He held hearings on the issue, and he got the Secretary of Energy to establish a new system to help minimize the harmful effects of refinery shutdowns.

As co-chairperson of the North Dakota Oil Refinery Task Force, we were dismayed to see how much revenue North Dakota was losing because of "discounted" oil in North Dakota. In the last nine months alone, just the tax revenue we lost because of discounted prices is over $29 million! Again, that is just the tax revenue. The royalty owners and developers loss would be many times that.

One of the potential solutions was to build another refinery in North Dakota. So Dorgan also got funding for the North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives to do a comprehensive study that would gauge whether it makes sense to build a new oil refinery in North Dakota. Our state is the fifth-largest oil-producing state in the nation. Something is wrong when we have fuel shortages in North Dakota. So I applaud Dorgan's leadership to make sure that crisis is never repeated.

Unlike Johnson, I believe we all need to work together to expand our energy industry. The investment Dorgan secured for a new refinery study will contribute to those efforts.