North Dakota and some of the state's major energy interests filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday seeking to overturn a 2007 Minnesota law that restricts power companies from importing electricity from new coal-fired power plants in other states.
The lawsuit, filed by that state's attorney general, two coal companies, their trade association and three electric cooperatives, alleges that the Minnesota law violates the U.S. Constitution by unfairly restricting interstate commerce.
It brings to a head a long-simmering dispute between the two state governments over fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions.
Minnesota's law bans new fossil-fuel power plants in Minnesota and restricts imports of electricity from new fossil-fuel plants in other states by requiring the utilities to offset the carbon dioxide emissions with reductions elsewhere.
North Dakota, which has deposits of lignite coal, wants to build at least three more coal-fired power plants and sell electricity in neighbor states. Those projects have been stymied by carbon-reduction requirements of the 2007 Next Generation Energy Act, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit asserts that Minnesota's law is "purely a symbolic gesture that could only have a negligible impact toward actually achieving the purpose of reducing greenhouse gases on a global scale."
It further alleges that Minnesota lawmakers carved out exemptions for certain power plants and for mining and steel carbon emitters.
"While an operating plant in Minnesota gets an exemption, we have to jump through these hoops," North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said in an interview.