Democratic Agriculture Commissioner candidate Ryan Taylor is proposing a “Landowner Bill of Rights” – to protect agricultural interests during the oil boom.
"We know there's a lot of oil to be harvested," said Taylor at a Bismarck news conference. "I think we can harvest it all. But let';s do it without infringing on the business that has supported North Dakota since statehood."
Taylor’s plan has five parts: increasing from 500 feet to one quarter mile the distance between a drilling rig and an occupied dwelling; requiring flow meters and cutoff valves on unregulated oil and gas pipelines; fixing mediation procedures; making sure debate that may affect landowners is done in public; and requiring reclamation protections for private landowners. Taylor says those reclamation laws would be similar to the laws for coal mines.
"We drive across the coal mines where they have reclaimed the land," said Taylor. "They're planted to alfalfa, and you see round bales. You can never tell they stripped coal out from beneath that ground. I believe we can do the same thing on well sites. And that would be a good legacy for North Dakota."
Taylor says some of these initiatives were previously proposed in the North Dakota Legislature – and many had bi-partisan support.