Grand Forks  (CSi) U.S. Rep Kevin Cramer, along with Gov. Doug Burgum, Sen John Hoeven, and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, toured UND’s Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC) before sitting down for a round-table discussion in Grand Forks.

The meeting highlighted North Dakota leading the way in energy independence and environmental stewardship through innovation. The group discussed efforts to restore a federalism approach to regulation in rolling back overreaching rules from the past Administration. They also heard from experts in the energy field who are actively testing and developing new technologies to produce American energy more efficiently.

“After sitting around for nearly four years under the previous Administration’s EPA, Administrator Pruitt’s proposed approval for North Dakota’s state primacy over Class VI injection wells is one of the many ways the new Administration has ushered in states-first, pro-job policies,” Cramer said.  “In the legislative branch I’m working on legislation that is more prescriptive in telling the agencies, like the EPA, what the public policy should be.”

Congressman Cramer is sponsoring legislation with Congressman Morgan Griffith to reform the New Source Review (NSR) program for existing electric generating units. The EPA has managed the NSR program that has prevented power producers from making reliability and efficiency improvements at existing plants. The legislation would exclude energy efficiency, pollution reduction, and power plant reliability projects from the definition of “modification” for purposes of the NSR program and enables producers to make those investments.