Federal funding delays for housing

By Jeff Beach | Deputy Editor

By Jack Dura

The only fair-housing organization in North Dakota faces a grim outlook with the delay of a major federal grant. 

The Grand Forks-based High Plains Fair Housing Center has been in a funding gap for two months. The center, which has one part-time and seven full-time employees, will likely furlough four of its staff on July 31 if the $425,000 Fair Housing Initiatives Program grant doesn’t show up, Center Executive Director Michelle Rydz said.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded the three-year grant in 2023 but hasn’t released the third installment.

By Monitor Staff

The accounting director for the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality will serve as interim director of the agency, Gov. Kelly Armstrong announced Friday.

Beth Jacobson, a 29-year state government employee, will begin leading the department on Aug. 1 after DEQ Director Dave Glatt retires at the end of the month, according to the governor’s office.

Artificial intelligence is changing so quickly that lawmakers across the country are struggling to keep up. 

Now, North Dakota has created a new legislative committee to study whether the state needs additional safeguards, and if so, what they should look like. The committee is not writing legislation just yet, but instead members are gathering information, hearing from experts, and looking at how other states are balancing innovation with consumer protection, free speech and public trust. 

North Dakota Monitor reporter Jacob Orledge joins host Craig Blumenshine to talk about the committee’s work, including a recent standing-room-only hearing.

A Closer Look with the Monitor is a partnership with Prairie Public's Main Street.

By Jack Dura

Fundraising for the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library has eclipsed $500 million, exceeding the $450 million goal of the project that opened its doors July 4.

The library marks the fundraising milestone as its CEO announced his upcoming departure from his position, but likely not completely from the library.

The total fundraising includes about $79 million in commitments mostly spread over the next five years, Library CEO Ed O’Keefe said Wednesday.

Part of the money will go toward paying back a $70 million line of credit North Dakota’s Republican-controlled Legislature approved in 2023 as a backstop for beginning construction.

By Jacob Orledge

A new legislative committee is studying how other states approach regulating artificial intelligence and is considering what policy steps may be necessary in North Dakota ahead of next year’s legislative session. 

Rep. Jonathan Warrey, R-Casselton, is chairing the committee and said the ultimate goal is to produce recommendations that are “practical, balanced, and focused on the long-term interests of the people of North Dakota.”

“We want to ensure that we take a North Dakota-first approach, one where innovation can thrive,” Warrey said. “But we’ve got to protect our citizens within reason and maintain public trust.”

By Jacob Orledge

North Dakota collected an estimated $29 million more in oil tax revenue in May as a result of a pricing anomaly that hadn’t happened in decades. 

Justin Kringstad, director of the North Dakota Pipeline Authority, said Wednesday crude oil produced in North Dakota sold for an average of $2.56 more per barrel than the West Texas Intermediate oil price benchmark in May, the most recent data available. 

“I had to go back to the 1980s to find a time period where there was a premium for North Dakota barrels,” Kringstad said during a monthly update on the state’s oil production.

By Jeff Beach

North Dakota utility regulators provided adequate notice to local governments and landowners before making a key decision on a high-voltage power line, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday. 

The court also ruled that the Public Service Commission was justified in denying an attempt by landowners and local officials to intervene in the power line case after that vote. 

Thursday’s ruling is a victory for the state agency and the utility companies who plan to build the power line. The Jamestown to Ellendale high-voltage transmission line, also known as JETx, will extend about 90 miles in Dickey, LaMoure and Stutsman counties in south-central North Dakota.  

Attorney Doug Nill said the townships and landowners intend to file an appeal of the PSC’s final approval of the power line. 

By Jeff Beach

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is reversing course on a change to a federal crop insurance policy to allow farmers to buy more protection if weather or field conditions prevent them from planting a crop. 

USDA had eliminated the option to buy additional prevented planting insurance going into the 2026 growing season. This raised concerns from growers in North Dakota, where the buy-up option has been a popular risk-management tool.  

In a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Committee, U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., asked Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins where the department stood on the policy. 

“We are 100% supportive of that and are moving forward to execute that buy-up option,” Rollins said. 

By Ceilidh Kern

The federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law in 2025, dramatically reshaped aspects of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which helps low-income families pay for groceries.

One of those changes was the introduction of the Healthy Choice Waiver, which allows states to restrict the use of SNAP benefits for certain products, like candy and soda.

North Dakota applied for the waiver in 2025 in an effort to secure more funding through the federal Rural Health Transformation Program.

The North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services expects to spend $3.5 million to $4 million to implement and enforce the changes.

By Mary Steurer
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to answer whether a group of McKenzie County landowners is entitled to attorney fees from a pipeline company.

The lawsuit stems from the landowners’ yearslong legal battle with WBI Energy after the company used eminent domain to take a portion of their properties for a pipeline project in 2018. The federal Natural Gas Act allows companies to take land for public natural gas infrastructure so long as landowners are fairly compensated. 

The property owners were paid for their land under a confidential settlement reached in federal court in 2021. They claim they’re also entitled to legal costs.

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