ROBBINSDALE, Minn. -- After reading about Tracy Potter's concerns about the North Dakota oil industry, a reader might say Potter should step back from his U.S. Senate run ("Potter: N.D. should avoid 'gold rush mentality' on oil," Page A6, June 4).
Potter's concerns about long-term viability and sustainability are valid. Many are those in North Dakota who view the oil boom with well-deserved suspicion, wondering if this boom will be like the last.
But the way Potter addresses these fears and the solutions he offers do not pass muster.
Whether Potter discusses North Dakota ghost towns, the establishment of shelterbelts or anything else, he seeks excuses for federal interference wherever room for such interference can be shoehorned in -- even though this interference depresses the initiative, suppresses the innovation and mitigates the power of the people that could have found grass-roots, people-based, people-driven solutions to these problems.
Then, Potter makes statements most improbable from any self-respecting logician.
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Namely, how does it follow that someone note the discounted price on North Dakota oil resulting from deficient infrastructure, express support for improving that infrastructure but then worry about more-rapidly depleting the oil in North Dakota -- a condition surely made easier with the infrastructure improvements he advocates?
Does Potter have any idea what he is saying?
With this in mind, Potter should revisit these issues, reconsider his presentation of them as well as his solutions -- and most important, stop insisting on micromanaging from Washington every little thing of which he worries. Washington already has too many such people.
