North Dakota could elect first Indigenous utilities commissioner: Balloting begins

Tracey Wilkie, a Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa citizen, has positioned herself to champion water, land and people struggling to pay a $5 increase in their electricity bills. She was campaigning for a North Dakota Public Service Commission post as early voting opened this week leading up to the Nov. 5 election.

If she receives more votes than incumbent Randy Christmann, she will become the first Native representative on the three-member commission.

As the top state regulator of utilities and other industrial activity, the commission is responsible for setting fair rates for electricity, telecommunications and railroads. It approves permits for energy projects, like pipelines, and standardizes weights and measures to ensure “you’re getting a full tank of gas,” Wilkie said.

“We need someone on the PSC who understands how utility rates affect folks who live paycheck to paycheck,” she said. A proposed $5 rate increase has a “disproportionate impact for individuals with limited income.”

Her candidacy revolves around North Dakotans’ environmental concerns in approving energy projects. Along the campaign trail, constituents say they want the commission to balance impacts on future generations against immediate economic benefits, Wilkie told Buffalo’s Fire.

Commissioners’ decisions also should “include Native history and stories,” Wilkie said. This means exploring “cultural considerations beyond the bare minimum.”

North Dakota is one of 11 states where the voters can elect Public Service Commissioners.

Their decisions affect the five tribal nations in the state and involve projects of international interest. They permitted the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline to transport crude oil extracted from the Bakken-Three Forks oil-producing region – an area that includes the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation – through Standing Rock Sioux ancestral lands

Now the commissioners face an equally debatable Summit Carbon Solutions’ application for a carbon dioxide pipeline near tribal lands and sacred sites.

The campaign is closely watched by Nicole Donaghy, executive director of North Dakota Native Vote. “Native American representation is necessary if we want real change or action in the legislative process,” she said in a statement to Buffalo’s Fire.

Toward that end, Native candidates of the Northern Plains states have attained a consistent presence during utility commission campaigns. Three Affiliated Tribes citizen Melanie Moniz ran in North Dakota’s 2022 campaign. In 2018, Wayne Frederick, citizen of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, ran for South Dakota’s Public Utilities Commission, following Oglala Sioux Nation citizen Henry Red Cloud’s 2016 campaign.

None of them won, but Donaghy said, “Democracy is a living thing. If we do not contribute to the life of democracy, it will fail us.”

Wilkie has the blessing of Pat Hart, Merrill Piepkorn’s running mate in the governor’s race. As treasurer of the North Dakota Democratic-Nonpartisan League, Hart nominated Wilkie at the party convention this spring. He said her situational awareness is crucial for the position. He emphasized that she could fill the need for transparency in the PSC’s decision-making process, advocating for more public engagement.

Seventy-six percent of the state leans Republican; Wilkie’s under no illusion winning will be easy. She said she learned about compromise and conflict resolution working as a union representative in the criminal justice sector. This experience will help her deal “tactfully and with purpose” in the company of the two other commissioners, who are Republicans. She aims to incorporate a broader range of stakeholder perspectives in the commissions’ decision-making, she said.

Her Republican challenger, Christmann, currently chairs the commission. Christmann responded to multiple requests for comment after this story was ready for publication.

Wilkie said her elders have taught her traditional lessons on protecting natural resources and community wellbeing. Growing up on the Turtle Mountain Reservation, she enjoyed walking by the water and harvesting plums each August just as her ancestors did.

Her appreciation of the natural world makes her mindful of how industry threatens it in North Dakota.

“Grandma Great Walker said there would come a time when we’d be fighting for our water,” she said.

Sure enough, in 2016, after commissioners gave the go-ahead for the Dakota Access Pipeline, her tribe joined hundreds of others to prevent its construction across the Missouri River. Thousands of Indigenous water protectors and allies established a yearlong encampment to oppose the project. Their goal is to protect sacred sites, the drinking water supply of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and downstream users from a toxic spill.

The private pipeline began operating without an environmental impact statement in the summer of 2017, under former President Donald Trump’s executive order to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In 2020, the Public Service Commission approved moving an increased amount of oil through that line. The Standing Rock Sioux leadership is appealing in court.

The commission is reviewing Summit Carbon Solutions’ permit application for a carbon dioxide pipeline through central North Dakota. The project would transport carbon dioxide waste from 57 ethanol plants in Minnesota, South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska to belowground storage space north of Bismarck. Tharaldson Energy is the only North Dakota plant in the project considering using greenhouse gas emissions for advanced oil extraction technologies.

Wilkie has responded to a vocal body of North Dakotans questioning the pipeline’s safety and the company’s, at times contentious, communication with landowners. She spoke about the project at a July rally on the state Capitol steps. She said the commission is responsible for reducing public concern about carbon capture and storage infrastructure.

Beyond pipeline permitting, the commission decides on proposed rate increases from the state’s three major natural gas and electric utilities. Otter Tail Power Co. proposes electric rate increases during an upcoming December hearing. “The consistent hikes in electricity rates may seem insignificant to those who have never had to worry about how they’re going to pay a bill,” Wilkie said.

“A challenge here is some people want to be mad and don’t want a resolution. We have to find ways to work together,” she said.

Burleigh and Morton County residents have already begun casting their ballots. Early voting begins next for Cass, Grand Forks, Stark, Stutsman and Ward counties.