Jill Schramm/MDN Congressman Kelly Armstrong talks with Andrew Emmel of SandPro at the Minot Area Chamber EDC’s energy committee meeting Oct. 13.

When it comes to climate change, energy producers need to pick their fights, Congressman Kelly Armstrong, R-ND, said in Minot recently.

Speaking to the Minot Area Chamber EDC’s energy committee Oct. 13, Armstrong warned against making climate change a fight between different forms of energy or between agriculture and energy. It doesn’t matter where oil is produced or if it is biofuel because that’s not the fight, he said.

“I think we have to be smarter about how we talk about ethanol, biodiesel, renewable diesel oil. It’s not that we don’t want to blend more. We do. But we want more capacity as a whole,” Armstrong said. “The problem with blended barrels is what you are doing is taking away traditional barrels. And that’s the fight they want us to have. That’s not the fight we should have.”

If every permanent renewable project came online in the next year, it wouldn’t keep up with the increased demand, Armstrong said. Renewables aren’t cutting into power provided by coal, natural gas or nuclear. It is not even keeping up with the increase in demand for energy, he said.

“So I don’t have a particular problem with ‘all of the above energy,'” he said. 

Armstrong said America needs to have conversations with its European allies who, in light of the Russia-Ukraine issues, realize the benefits of dealing with an ally for their natural gas. However, he noted that buying shift would require liquid natural gas tankers and a way to onboard once reaching Europe because the infrastructure doesn’t exist.

There needs to be conversations about pipelines in America, he added.

One of his frustrations is hearing his Republican colleagues talk about flipping the switch on American energy and building the Keystone pipeline. The federal government does not build pipelines, and the company that planned to build Keystone has scrapped its plans, Armstrong said.

“But there’s four other infrastructure projects that companies want to run through Canada and the United States, so the first bill I’ll introduce is a presidential permit bill, because how do you attract capital to a 10-year project when you know the president could stop it with the stroke of a pen in four years?” he said.

Armstrong said the biggest fights over energy could occur in financial and other sectors in which socially conscious investors are driving discussions. 

“This fight is about producing versus consuming,” he said. “I spend a ton of my time in D.C. on energy literacy, and I”m not just talking to Democrats. We are so removed from how our food is produced or how our gasoline gets actually to the gas station or how that electricity, when you flip your light switch on, comes into your house.”

The debate gets interesting when consumers want to tell producers how to produce, he said.

“I don’t think they should tell us how to. I think they should just say ‘thank you,'” he said.

A Republican, Armstrong is running for re-election Nov. 8 against independent candidate Cara Mund. Mund did not respond to requests for comment on her energy policy position.