North Dakota is the only state in America where three elected officials essentially jointly own a bank and a flour mill, regulate oil drilling, approve billion-dollar bond issues, and hand out grants for everything from housing and drone research, to hydrogen development. This board, the North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC), was created more than a century ago at the height of the Nonpartisan League’s political revolution. Over time, it has survived economic collapses, political recalls, court challenges, and vast technological change. Not only did it survive, but it grew, expanded, and quietly embedded itself into nearly every sector of the state’s economy.
Today, the NDIC is one of the most powerful bodies in any state government, yet one of the least understood. It sits at the intersection of politics, regulation, enterprise, and public finance, and its decisions directly shape the state’s energy future, housing market, infrastructure development, and long-term investments. The three people who wield that power—Governor Kelly Armstrong, Attorney General Drew Wrigley, and Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring—can enact sweeping political changes with a simple 2–1 vote.
This article traces the NDIC’s formation and historical evolution into what it is today, laying the groundwork for Part Two, which will ask: Should three elected officials still wield so much unchecked economic and political power in 2025, especially when potential conflicts of interest may emerge at the very top?
The The NDIC was established in February 1919, at the height of the Nonpartisan League’s effort to give farmers more control over their economic future. That year, the League-controlled Legislature passed Senate Bill 151, establishing the Commission to “manage, control, and govern” all state-owned businesses and utilities. Control was placed in the hands of three statewide elected officials: the Governor, Attorney General, and Agriculture Commissioner. Their first mission was to oversee two new ventures—the Bank of North Dakota and the North Dakota Mill and Elevator Association—which were designed to bypass out-of-state banks and grain monopolies.
But from the start, resistance was fierce. Railroad-backed interests and the anti-League Independent Voters Association (IVA) quickly forced a statewide referendum on the Bank, the Mill, and the Commission itself. On June 26, 1919, voters narrowly upheld all three, offering conditional support for the state’s new ownership model. Still, the NDIC’s early years were marked by legal battles, financial strain, and bitter partisan warfare. By 1921, with grain prices crashing and public frustration growing, North Dakotans voted in the first successful gubernatorial recall in U.S. history, removing Governor Lynn Frazier and the other two commissioners (all NPL'ers) from office, however the commission and state agencies on the ballot survived.
Even with this, the NDIC and the most of the institutions it oversaw all remained intact. Despite the political volatility of that time, the basic structure endured, quietly laying the foundation for the Commission’s lasting influence.
Over the next three decades, the NDIC shed its revolutionary image and became an increasingly technocratic institution. The Bank of North Dakota matured into the state’s central depository and key source of credit for farms and public projects. The Mill and Elevator expanded throughout the region, earning a reputation for quality and efficiency. By the 1930s, the Commission had shifted from populist experiment to a mainstay in the state's government.
In 1941, the Legislature gave the NDIC authority over mineral leasing on state lands, beginning its long march into natural resource management. That role expanded dramatically in 1951 with the discovery of oil near Tioga. The Commission, with limited statutory guidance, took on the responsibility of regulating drilling, managing spacing and permits, and minimizing waste, all functions that would define its central role in North Dakota’s energy landscape for decades to come.
As plans for the Garrison Dam moved forward in the 1940s, the Industrial Commission became involved in financing and land use coordination related to the massive federal flood control and hydroelectric project. The Bank of North Dakota, operating under the NDIC’s oversight, helped fund local infrastructure and housing transitions in towns that would be affected by the rising reservoir. Later, as tens of thousands of acres of land were inundated and reclassified, the NDIC would oversee mineral leasing, resource mapping, and property management tied to lands now submerged beneath the lake, as well as the disposal of the former Riverdale site. This helped lay the foundation for decades of tension (and wealth) over mineral rights beneath and around Lake Sakakawea.
This quiet but continuous growth in authority reflects a broader trend: instead of creating new oversight agencies, North Dakota often layered new responsibilities onto the NDIC. The result was a streamlined but increasingly centralized structure of control.
The energy booms and environmental shifts of the 1970s and 1980s reshaped the Commission’s authority yet again. In 1981, the state transferred oil and gas regulatory enforcement from the State Geologist to a new Oil and Gas Division housed within the Department of Mineral Resources, which the NDIC directly oversees. From that point forward, the Commission became the final authority on every drilling permit, spacing order, and pipeline construction project in the state.
Federal legislation on coal and surface mining further expanded the NDIC’s responsibilities. It became the state’s designated authority for mining permits, geothermal and uranium leasing, and eventually carbon injection regulation. In 1987, the Legislature created the Lignite Research Program, placing it under NDIC control. Funded by coal taxes, the program allowed the Commission to support research and development aimed at preserving the lignite industry.
By the end of the Cold War era, the NDIC had evolved into a hybrid institution: partial enterprise board, part energy commission, and part development agency. While other states assigned such powers to independent regulatory boards or energy departments, North Dakota centralized them under a three-member body, creating a governance model as efficient as it was powerful.
While energy regulation became one of the Commission’s most visible responsibilities, it was in the realm of finance, housing, and infrastructure development that the NDIC quietly solidified its reputation as the most powerful institutional body in North Dakota. In 1980, a voter-approved initiated measure placed the North Dakota Housing Finance Agency under NDIC control, granting it the authority to issue tax-exempt bonds for affordable home loans and rental projects. This marked the Commission’s first major foray into statewide public finance.
Soon after, it assumed oversight of the Public Finance Authority, formerly known as the Municipal Bond Bank, allowing the Commission to purchase or guarantee local infrastructure bonds issued by cities, counties, and school districts. This positioned the NDIC as a behind-the-scenes financial engine for anything from school construction to water treatment systems.
During the 2000s, the Commission’s reach widened even further. In 2005, the Legislature created the North Dakota Transmission Authority to help coordinate high-voltage power line projects, particularly in rural areas reliant on lignite coal and wind energy. In 2007, the state added the Pipeline Authority to promote the construction of new oil and gas transport infrastructure. Though technically independent, both authorities are governed by the NDIC, which appoints directors and approves major decisions.
Alongside this, the Commission began expanding its role in research, development, and conservation funding. The early 2000s saw the launch of the Oil and Gas Research Program, designed to support drilling innovations and environmental monitoring. In 2007, the Renewable Energy Program was created to award grants for wind, biofuel, and energy storage projects. The Outdoor Heritage Fund, established in 2013 and funded by oil tax revenues, brought conservation and land access into the fold, supporting habitat restoration, trail building, and agricultural stewardship with the NDIC holding oversight over it.
By 2021, North Dakota’s shift toward low-carbon innovation led to the creation of the Clean Sustainable Energy Authority. Designed to invest in next-generation energy, CSEA began with $25 million in grants and the authority to issue $250 million in low-interest loans for hydrogen production, carbon capture, and energy efficiency. The Commission also oversees the Western Area Water Supply Authority, a major regional pipeline system that delivers Missouri River water to towns and energy hubs in northwestern North Dakota, a project originally financed through NDIC-managed loans from the Bank of North Dakota.
Taken together, these entities form a tightly integrated administrative network, with the NDIC functioning as banker, regulator, developer, and investor. By 2025, the Commission’s cumulative influence touches every corner of the state’s economy: from the pipelines under its farmland to the mortgages backing its homes. And every decision, from energy investment to conservation grants, is approved by a three-person board with the power to approve or deny proposals with just two votes.
In total, the Commission now directly governs or significantly oversees 17 distinct agencies and programs, including:
What began in 1919 as a radical but localized response to agrarian inequality has become a sprawling, centralized engine of state government. Today’s North Dakota Industrial Commission is a uniquely powerful institution that shapes the direction of energy, finance, infrastructure, and public development across the state.
And yet, the NDIC remains what it has always been: three elected officials, accountable only to voters every four years, making decisions that often escape public scrutiny. With recent headlines raising fresh questions about oversight, transparency, and possible conflicts of interest, the time may be right to reexamine how much authority belongs in the hands of so few.
Part Two of this series will explore the NDIC’s modern footprint, assess the case for reform, and outline options for a more accountable model, one built for the mid-21st century, not the early 20th.
