North Dakota Pressures EPA On Energy

BISMARCK – Dec 9/03 - SNS -- More effort from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is needed in order for the fledgling renewable energy resource industry to keep making the kind of progress needed to develop the sector, argues North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson.

"Encouraging the federal government to stand behind renewable energy was a key theme voiced throughout North Dakota’s recent renewable energy summit," Johnson said in a letter to Paul Cough, EPA director of international environmental policy, who is temporarily assigned to Region 8. "EPA’s goals and objectives must incorporate similar themes if renewable energy is going to play a truly active role in any energy policy."

Johnson’s letter was written in response to an invitation by Kerrigan Clough, the EPA Region 8 deputy administrator, to comment on a proposed EPA energy strategy for the eight-state region.

Drawing on the proceedings of "A Vision for the Future," North Dakota’s first renewable energy summit, held Oct. 28-29 in Mandan, Johnson said renewable energy development would benefit North Dakota and the entire nation.

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