§ 17-05-01 — Declaration of findings and public purpose

The legislative assembly finds and declares that:
1. North Dakota has twenty-five billion tons of abundant, recoverable lignite coal
reserves, enough to last eight hundred years at today's thirty million tons of annual
production.
2. The lignite industry presently generates electricity for more than two million people in
the northern great plains region and there is increased regional demand for
development of North Dakota's lignite resources.
3. North Dakota has enormous wind resources, providing additional economic
opportunity to broaden and diversify the state's economy and diversify the region's
energy supply, and that timely development of these resources will stabilize and
increase revenues to the state.
4. Transmission constraints impede the development of the state's lignite and wind
resources.
5. An essential governmental function and public purpose is to assist with the removal of
electric transmission export constraints and to assist with upgrading and expansion of
the region's electrical transmission grid to facilitate the development of the state's
abundant natural resources.
6. Developing and exporting our natural resources will promote the public interest by
increasing employment, stimulating economic activity, augmenting sources of tax
revenue, fostering economic stability, and improving the state's economy.
7. State ownership of electrical transmission facilities may not exceed the extent and
duration necessary or useful to promote the public interest.