There’s a good reason I don’t send “Letters to the Editor” of daily newspapers. I can usually reach the audience I want to reach here on my blog. It’s mine, and I can say whatever I damn well please. And I do. And if someone disagrees with me, they can just start their own blog.
But then right-wing oil industry sycophants like Scott Hennen and Rob Port, and Sens. Dale Patten and Greg Kessel, use their access to newspapers to blather all kinds of misinformation, and this time, when that happened in the case of the new national monument, I just couldn’t help myself. So I wrote one. And sent it. Here’s what it said.
Dear Editor,
I’m not generally in the business of writing letters to the editor. I usually write what I feel on my blog, The Prairie Blog. But Scott Hennen’s over-the-top column in Forum Communications’ North Dakota newspapers about North Dakota’s proposed new national monument needs a response in your newspaper.
His inflammatory language like “radical environmental extremists” and “onslaught of punitive action” are almost not fit for a family newspaper. Mostly because they have no basis in fact.
Here are the facts.
The proposed Maah Daah Hey National Monument simply recognizes the protection already given to 11 areas of our National Grassland under its current Management Plan. The regulations governing mineral development in that plan were written in 2002, during the administration of President George W. Bush. You can view them by looking at the “Oil and Gas Stipulations” on the Dakota Prairie Grassland website.
Further, you can read the subsequent “Record of Decision for Oil and Gas Leasing” enacted in 2020 during the administration of President Donald Trump on the same website.
Still, it’s a pretty good plan. Among its objectives:
- Improve the capability of our grasslands to provide diverse, high-quality outdoor recreation opportunities.
- Provide opportunities for oil and gas exploration and development, ensure reclamation provisions of operating plans and honor all valid existing mineral rights.
- Provide forage for livestock on suitable rangelands.
There is nothing new in this national monument proposal that ranchers, recreationists and the oil and gas industry have not been living with for almost 25 years.
This proposal just gives the land in these 11 special places in our Bad Lands the added caché of recognition as a national monument. We don’t have any national monuments in North Dakota. Yet. We should be very proud of this idea.
Go visit some of these places this coming summer. Just grab your camera, binoculars and walking stick, park on the section line, climb over the fence, and go for a walk in some of the last, best, unspoiled places in our state. The cattle, deer, prairie dogs and birds that live there will welcome you.
Well, a wise man told me once, “Never get into a pissing match with a skunk.”
Yep. Should have listened because the skunks are coming out.
Hennen and Port are regular columnists for Forum Communications’ newspapers, in Fargo, Grand Forks, Dickinson and Jamestown. Hennen took after the monument with all kinds of misinformation. Port took after me personally. I thought about responding to Port, but I recall another piece of advice I got once: Never get into a pissing match with someone who buys ink by the barrel. Port and Hennen’s employers buy a lot of ink.
Well, I hope I’m done with Hennen, but Port went too far. Never mind that he went after me. It’s what he did to Mark Fox that troubles me.
Fox is the chairman of the Tribal Council for the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation. He was the subject of Port’s latest rant.
First of all, Port wrote, “The MHA Nation has significant oil reserves on its lands, and Fox spoke to me at length about how important it is to his tribe that they be allowed to develop those resources to advance their cultural and economic prosperity.”
I hope Fox gets a chance to read Port’s story because Port made up a whole lot of other quotes and attributed them to Fox.
Like:
- “Depending on how large the designation is, it could impact some of our drilling.”
And:
- “Some entities have used this national monument declaration to stop drilling and stop energy production. We don’t want it stopped either for ourselves or the state.”
And:
- “We’re reaching out to BLM and others to say, ‘You explain.’”
Well, dang, Rob, you should know Chairman Fox would never say stuff like that because he’s a smart guy, and he knows that the monument doesn’t include any tribal lands, and it’s Forest Service land, not BLM land. Oh, the oil boom has made his tribe really wealthy, but still … I hope he gives Port a piece of his mind. Heh.
And don’t even get me started about Kessel and Patten. There’s a whole big long story about Kessel and the oil refinery he wants to build on his land down a couple of section lines from Theodore Roosvelt National Park. And Patten is the recipient of the North Dakota Petroleum Council’s Outstanding Public Service Award for his “contributions to the oil industry.”
You know, this whole monument thing has really gotten the oil industry and those who oppose any possible oversight of it — even from a distance — into a real hissy-fit. Mostly, it’s just an anti-government thing, fueled by the climate of the times, under Donald Trump. I’m really cheering for the monument. It’s a big deal for a state like North Dakota.
Patten and Kessel, by the way, got under my wife’s skin in their rant in The Forum about the Antiquities Act this week. Lillian wrote, “Yes, the president can designate a national monument with the stroke of a pen, using the Antiquities Act. Thank you, Theodore Roosevelt, for creating that act.”
There are a lot of “sides” being taken over this monument proposal. Like Lillian, I think I prefer to be on TR’s side.
Here are some links to the stories, letters, and columns I’ve mentioned. Warning: There might be a paywall.
Oh, and by the way, I’ve written about Hennen and Port before. Long ago. But not much has changed.
