North Dakota Congresswoman Julie Fedorchak spoke to both chambers of the state Legislature Tuesday and told lawmakers that cutting bloated and wasteful spending was the first step in addressing the country’s debt crisis.
Fedorchak said restoring fiscal accountability, unleashing the energy industry and taking advantage of the boom in artificial intelligence data centers would benefit North Dakotans because the changes in policy align with what the state is already doing.
Fedorchak, a Republican, told lawmakers she’s leading a working group in the U.S. House to focus on the energy needs of artificial intelligence.
“North Dakota should lead the efforts empowering AI,” Fedorchak said.
Data centers, using banks of hundreds of computers, have become a controversial topic in some North Dakota communities.
Aaron Birst, executive director of the North Dakota Association of Counties, told the North Dakota Monitor last fall that some counties have chosen to “push the pause button,” as they sort through the implications of data center developments, such as noise, traffic, water use, housing, schools, child care and crime.
During a news conference, Fedrochak said she’s a strong supporter of local control and hopes concerns about data centers can be addressed on the front end.
“We don’t want to bring on data centers that create a bunch of noise and are a nuisance for people living around them,” Fedorchak said. “At the same time, I think you can zone things, I think you can permit them and construct them in ways that they don’t.”
On federal staffing and spending cuts, Fedorchak said President Donald Trump’s administration has the authority to operate the executive branch.
“The manner at which they do that, that’s up to them,” Fedorchak said. “I’m not steeped into the specifics of exactly what he is doing and where at every moment, but overall, yeah, I think he (Trump) needs to be taking aggressive action to getting spending under control.”
She added that in governments as large as the United States’, bureaucrats start to run the government and it becomes difficult to rein in.
Fedorchak also said, while Social Security can’t be touched as part of the federal budget process, work requirements and annual verification could be added to the Medicaid program as a way to decrease spending.
“Folks that can work, should work,” she said. “We should not be spending precious federal money, of which we are in debt … we shouldn’t be spending that money, incentivizing people not to work.”
The extra requirements would make the Medicaid program more sustainable, she said.
Fedorchak added she believes it’s “likely” Congress will need to raise the debt limit in coming weeks as part of budget negotiations. The government is funded through March 14.
