Wow. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) announces on Tuesday he will not seek re-election, and Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) follows up with an announcement today.

This watcher of North Dakota politics is surprised, if only because Congressional incumbency is as close you can get to a sinecure in the state. The last time an incument member of Congress was defeated in North Dakota was 1986, when now Sen. Kent Conrad, a Democrat, knocked off Sen. Mark Andrews, a Republican. And septuagenarianism has never been a disqualification: Sen. Quentin Burdick (D-ND) was 84 when he died in office in 1992 after serving 32 years in the Senate. When Sen. Milt Young (R-ND) retired from the Senate in 1982, he was 84 and had served for 36 years. Dorgan is just 67.

Senator Dorgan’s voting record on Key Votes as identified by the National Association of Manufacturers is available here. In the 110th Congress (2007-2008) he recorded a 15 percent rating on pro-manufacturing votes; he twice reached 35 percent during a Congress.

Senator Dodd’s record is here. In the 110th, Sen. Dodd achieved an 8 percent rating on manufacturing issues. His high point was 46 percent in the 105th Congress, his first two years in the Senate; in the 107th Congress, he recorded a 0 percent score.

The two announcements have implications for monetary policy. Marketplace Morning Report this a.m. covered the Dodd’s announcement by noting the Senator’s support for legislation to limit the authority of the Federal Reserve. Senator Dorgan, too, has been a relentless critic of the Fed of the populist ilk during his tenure in Congress.

(Disclosure: Your blogger worked for North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven during the 2000 campaign and for six months during his administration. Hoeven, a Republican, was already widely expected to seek the Senate seat even before Dorgan’s announcement.)

We wrote recently about the testimony of North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven to Congress on the need for a comprehensive national energy strategy, noting the state’s still healthy economy.

Turns out the Germans have noticed, as well. The photo above accompanies a Financial Times Germany article by Matthias Ruch, “Oh, wie schön ist North Dakota,” or, “Oh, how lovely North Dakota is.” The summarizing paragraph at the start: “All of America is stuck in a deep recession. Only a smaller state in the north grows cheerfully onward, even producing surplusses. North Dakota simply has a hell of a lot of energy.” And…

Oil, wind and biodiesel. With this formula North Dakota is able to successfully resist the economic crisis. Even as other states are burdened by their heavy debts, Governor John Hoeven has managed surpluses. At the end of the current budget period in June 2011 the state budget is expected to be $700 million in the black. And taxes are being cut.

With growth of 7.3 percent over the past year, North Dakota has left the rest of the country in the dust. There’s no recession. Today the unemployment rate is at 4.2 percent; nationally, the figure is more than twice that. “We desperately need workers,” says Cory Fong. As tax commission in the capital city of Bismarck, Fong carefully watches over the income and expenses of the state. “Energy drives our growth,” he says. “Oil, coal and agriculture work hand in hand. Now we want to close the circle and attract machinery and construction firms to the state.”

The story does oversell the importance of biodiesel, important enough — especially in a top state for producing canola — but a product that pales in wealth-creation in comparison to oil and coal.

But the overriding point is true, and it’s one other states should take note of: A diverse energy economy is a proven way to ensure a strong and resilient economy.

Following up on yesterday’s Senate EPW hearing on energy policy and the states, where North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven called for a comprehensive national energy strategy (see post), the good people at Energy in Depth pass on an exchange the governor had with Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK):

Key Excerpts From Yesterday’s U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Hearing
Dialogue starts at 101:50.
Click HERE to view.

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK):  “Governor Hoeven, the thing I was going to bring up is there’s a lot of discussion, when you talk about your offset capabilities there, and what you’re doing, that’s great. We’re doing somewhat the same thing, although most of ours is marginal production. But there is a, I’d suggest to you, the use of hydraulic fracturing is necessary in your state to be able to explore, to retrieve all these oil capabilities.”

Gov. John Hoeven (R-ND):  “It’s absolutely vital. You know, you mention some of these new formations. They are not, uh, the oil isn’t connected. You’ve got to go underground. And you’re talking two miles underground. And make a fracture in order to get the oil to flow. That’s vitally important.”

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK):  “I wanted to get that into the record, because there are some efforts to do away with hydraulic fracturing, and it would be devastating.”

Just so. Energy in Depth has been a strong voice defending hydrofracturing technology, in which pressurized water is pumped in subterranean strata to make the oil or natural gas accessible via drilling. Without hydrofrac, development of the Bakken Formation oil as well as our vast natural gas resources in Texas (Barnett Shale) and Pennsylvania/New York/Ohio (Marcellus Shale) would be prohibitively expensive.

The activist group, ProPublica, has been leading a bizarre campaign against the widely accepted technology, and by offering its agenda-driven reporting for free has been successful in getting newspapers to publish the articles. Apparently if it’s gratis, editing is optional.

This is a telling observation from an Energy in Depth rebuttal, which explains why we refer to ProPublica as an activist outlet, not a journalistic venture, “Separating Fiction from Invention in ProPublica’s Latest Anti-HF Attack Piece“:

Earlier this week, ProPublica author Abrahm Lustgarten released the latest installment in his series of advocacy pieces attacking the commonly used energy technology known as hydraulic fracturing. Instead of simply running on the ProPublica blog and website, however, the article was co-published with Politico and appeared in the paper’s news section (a letter to the editor from Energy In Depth policy director Lee Fuller will appear in the paper this Tuesday).

It wasn’t the first time that a mainstream news outlet provided ProPublica with a platform for this kind of product - although, for papers such as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the determination has been made that ProPublica articles, when run, are more appropriately filed on its “opinion/perspectives” page than as part of its straight-news reporting.

Prior to its release, Energy In Depth spoke at length with Mr. Lustgarten about the direction of the (presumably already written) piece and the myriad mistakes he was making in issuing a blanket indictment of recent government and third-party reports finding that EPA regulation of hydraulic fracturing would cost Americans jobs, revenues and future security.  

Regrettably, none of those explanations made it into his final piece.

 And regrettably, ProPublica appears to be a model for future journalistic ventures.

As previously noted, this blogger once worked for Gov. John Hoeven. But it’s been eight years now.

Outstanding testimony today from North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven, speaking at a Senate Environment and Public Works hearing, “Clean Energy Jobs, Climate-Related Policies and Economic Growth - State and Local Views.” The heart of his argument:

Instead of Waxman-Markey, or similar legislation, Congress needs to implement a comprehensive energy policy that will incentivize industry to develop all of our energy resources-both traditional sources and renewable sources-in an environmentally sound manner. The current uncertainty from Congress’s failure to do so is freezing investment of new technologies on the sidelines - technologies that will help our country produce more domestic energy in environmentally sound, cost-effective ways. 

Governor Hoeven provided specific examples from North Dakota about how Waxman-Markey would penalize the state and its private-sector energy companies, as well as North Dakota’s broader efforts to expand an environmentally responsible energy sector.

Other governors who testified today were Bill Ritter of Colorado, Christine Gregoire of Washington, and Jon Corzine of New Jersey. From Gov. Corzine’s testimony:

Under the leadership of President Obama, this body, your colleagues in the House, and states across this country, we are on the verge of a green revolution. This revolution will require a new way of thinking about our energy supply, energy demand and our impacts on the global environment.

Revolution, eh?

Well, let’s see how the different approaches toward energy have worked so far:

• North Dakota’s unemployment rate, June: 4.2
• New Jersey’s unemployment rate, June: 9.2

• Bloomberg, “N.J. Faces $8 Billion Budget Deficit, Forecaster Says“
• North Dakota Legislative Council, “Estimated June 30, 2011, Fund Balance Summary“: $1.2 billion.

 Disclosure: The Shopfloor.org blogger used to work for Governor Hoeven, but it seems like ages ago.

Quite interesting, in terms of all-politics-is-local observations. From Alan Greenblatt at Governing:

Few legislative chambers changed hands yesterday. Those that did reflected the increasingly regional nature of the major parties’ strength.

“This wasn’t a big, overwhelming night for Democrats,” says Tim Storey, of the National Conference of State Legislatures. “They definitely got their wins, but they didn’t command legislative elections like they did two years ago.”

Democrats won the biggest prize of the night, taking control of the New York Senate for the first time since 1966 — and gaining control of the entire New York State government for the first time since the Depression. They now hold at least 32 seats in the 62-seat chamber.

But Republicans pulled off the biggest surprise of the cycle, taking the Tennessee House for the first time since 1971. They also broke a tie in the Tennessee Senate, winning a solid majority that gives them total control of the legislature for the first time since Reconstruction.

Republicans also broke a tie in the Oklahoma Senate, taking control of that chamber for the first time ever.

Finally, congratulations to your correspondent’s former boss, Governor John Hoeven of North Dakota, the first governor in the state to win election to a third, four-year term. Seventy-four percent!  Hoeven has emphasized jobs-creation in North Dakota, where economic growth and the expansion of manufacturing has been driven by the energy sector — coal, some ethanol, and oil, lots of oil.