OTHER VIEWS

Other veiws: Chamber says to raise the debt limit

No less than the U.S. Chamber of Commerce earlier this month advised Republicans in Congress to quit playing ideological games and get about the vital business of raising the nation’s debt ceiling, the legal limit on how much the U.S. government can borrow. The deadline to avoid at least a partial default is Aug. 2, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.

By The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead , July 29, 2011

Other views: N.D. has resources to help flood victims

North Dakota Republican legislative leaders, specifically House Majority Leader Rep. Al Carlson, R-Fargo, apparently believe the state does not have sufficient resources to aid victims of flood in Minot, Bismarck-Mandan and elsewhere. He all but said as much in a broadcast interview that did not get much attention. He tried to sell the myth that North Dakota does not have the money or mechanisms to get help to individuals, families and business people who are trying to recover from record spring and summer flooding.

By The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead , July 27, 2011

Other views: School year begins to take shape in Minot

The first of many difficult decisions facing Minot Public School District administrators have been made. There will be many more to come. Supt. Mark Vollmer announced recently that students from flooded Lincoln Elementary will attend classes at First Presbyterian Church, while the more than 500 students from Erik Ramstad Middle School will call the Minot Municipal Auditorium home for the 2011-12 school year. There will also be portable classrooms set up in the auditorium’s north parking lot. Head Start children will be in portables at Jefferson Early Childhood Center, and students from Central Campus Plus will attend class on the west side of Souris River Campus on the grounds of the Quentin Burdick Job Corps Center.

By Minot Daily News , July 26, 2011

Other views: Bring pragmatism to bear on debt

Well, he did have to evacuate his house, for one thing. In the region of his state’s capital city, so did the residents of more than 900 other homes, as what looked like a wall of floodwater rushed toward town. Then, in his state’s fourth-largest city, some 11,000 people had to evacuate, and the flood that hit that community is one for the ages. So, North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven has had a busy couple of weeks.

By Grand Forks Herald , July 25, 2011

Other views: Oil-in-water response is necessary in N.D.

North Dakota has been successfully dodging bullets when it comes to the risk of pipeline ruptures and oil spills in, or near, its lakes and rivers. There have been spills, as there always will be, but none of them have been major or caused significant environmental damage in the waters of the Little Missouri or Missouri rivers or Lake Sakakawea.

By The Bismarck Tribune , July 22, 2011

Other views: Keep the public in the loop with information

Information, and lots of it, helped Bismarck-Mandan with the unruly Missouri River this spring. There were regular televised flood updates, intense Facebook traffic, constant tweets, Web links, broadcasts and heavy newspaper coverage all matching the releases from Garrison Dam at every foot-per-second increase in flow. Record river levels created record flows of information. People wanted — needed — to know.

By The Bismarck Tribune , July 15, 2011

Other views: N.D. should benefit from EPA study on fracking

Well-drilling and natural gas production in Pennsylvania isn’t the same as operations in the North Dakota oil patch. Wells drilled here are significantly deeper. One of the fears has been that a proposed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study of fracking would focus on lower-depth wells in Pennsylvania, and the result would be rules and regulations that do not take North Dakota well depth into consideration.

By The Bismarck Tribune , July 01, 2011

Other veiws: Flood fight has moved to Minot

The only North Dakota natural disaster comparable to what is unfolding this week in Minot is the Grand Forks flood of 1997. The northern Red River Valley city was evacuated as levees along the swollen Red River failed. At the time, it was one of the largest mass urban evacuations in U.S. history.

By The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead , June 24, 2011

Other views: Storm cleanup goes well

If power was out in your home for 40 hours or more after recent thunderstorms, it might seem like cleanup and repairs in the Fargo metro were not at all speedy. Fair enough. But shortly after the storm, broken trees had been cleared from streets; downed power lines had been raised. Streets were open and electricity was flowing in most of the city and region.

By The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead , June 10, 2011

Other views: ‘Unwritten agreement’ is not acceptable

Hey, what about us? Minot Mayor Curt Zimbelman is justified in being upset and requesting a meeting with Gov. Jack Dalrymple to discuss the inequity in distributing $33.5 million to cities impacted by the booming oil industry.

By Minot Daily News , June 03, 2011

Other views: U.S. needs to develop education wisely

Results from the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment show 15-year-old students in the U.S. are performing about average in reading and science, and below average in math. Out of 34 countries, the U.S. ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math. And while this is an improvement compared to the last two times this test was taken in 2003 and 2006, it is still far behind the highest-scoring countries, including South Korea, Finland and Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai in China and even our neighbors to the north, Canada. The PISA exam is one of a handful of tests that compare educational levels across nations, and is considered to be the most comprehensive. The test focuses on how well students are able to apply their knowledge in math, reading and science to real-life situations. Some 470,000 students took the test in 2009 in 65 countries and educational systems, from poor, underdeveloped nations to the most wealthy.

By Williston Herald , May 27, 2011

Other views: Tax on miles driven is a dead end

No one seems quite sure how serious discussion surrounding it has been, but any talk about a tax on how many miles a vehicle is driven should be quashed immediately, if it hasn’t been already.

By Minot Daily News , May 20, 2011

Other views: N.D. must be vigilant about spills

North Dakota should take heed of a few recent warnings of the potentially dire consequences of oil development. Earlier this month, when a pipeline failed near Keene, in McKenzie County, 4,200 gallons of potentially toxic saltwater and 5 gallons of oil ran into Lake Sakakawea. It was the first known time that oil or waste from oil production entered the Missouri River reservoir, a critical waterway and the drinking supply for cities, including Williston and Bismarck.

By The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead , April 29, 2011

Other views: Rising lake destroys a way of life

Not long ago, a farmer in North Dakota’s Devils Lake Basin watched the farmhouse that had been in the family since the homestead era burn to the ground. It was no accident. The family torched the old home. More than 100 years of memories went up in smoke because there was no way to save the place from rising water. The roads were either washed out or so waterlogged they could not support a house move. Regulations prevented leaving the place in the rising water. Burning it and clearing the rubble was the only option.

By The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead , April 22, 2011

Other views: Some N.D. lawmakers should go back to school

The anti-higher education tilt in the North Dakota Legislature got pushed back to some semblance of balance when the state Senate confirmed the appointment of Kirsten Diederich of Fargo to the state Board of Higher Education. The 36-10 vote came after a Senate review panel voted 3-1 to recommend the Concordia College biology teacher be rejected by the full Senate.

By The Forum , February 25, 2011