(North Dakota Monitor)- North Dakota utility regulators provided adequate notice to local governments and landowners before making a key decision on a high-voltage power line, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
The court also ruled that the Public Service Commission was justified in denying an attempt by landowners and local officials to intervene in the power line case after that vote.
Thursday’s ruling is a victory for the state agency and the utility companies who plan to build the power line. The Jamestown to Ellendale high-voltage transmission line, also known as JETx, will extend about 90 miles in Dickey, LaMoure and Stutsman counties in south-central North Dakota.
The lawsuit, led by Wano Township in LaMoure County, asserted that the project developers, Otter Tail Power and Montana-Dakota Utilities, were allowed to file for a certificate of public convenience and necessity under the wrong state statute. Attorney Doug Nill argued that filing for the certificate under what he considered to be the correct area of law would have required direct notice to local authorities such as Wano Township.
The utilities argued they were conducting business as usual for siting a power line.
The court found that the PSC’s notice of an application for a certificate of need was sufficient. A notice ran in 14 newspapers, including the official newspaper of each affected county.
The Public Service Commission approved that certificate of need in November 2024. Commission Chair Randy Christmann voted against the project, citing costs that would be passed on to ratepayers. Commissioners Sheri Haugen-Hoffart and Julie Fedorchak voted in favor.
Obtaining that certificate was one step on the way to the power line route being approved. Commissioners approved the JETx project in June. Christmann joined Haugen-Hoffart and Jill Kringstad, who replaced Fedorchak, in a unanimous vote.
The court also agreed with a lower court ruling that the townships and landowners were too late in trying to intervene in the case after the certificate of need had been issued.
Nill said in an email that the ruling did not address whether the PSC used the wrong statutory process. He said it also left the door open for the townships and landowners to make their case against the power line during the route permitting process. In light of that, he said the townships intend to file an appeal of the PSC’s final approval.
Christmann on Thursday said he did not expect Nill’s argument that the case had been filed improperly would succeed.
“I felt like the PSC handled it appropriately, and that’s coming from a guy who dissented from the order,” Christmann said.
He said he voted for the route permit because the Supreme Court has made it clear that the commission should treat the two issues separately.
He also stood behind the PSC’s public notices. “I think our public notice process is working well,” Christmann said.
The power line has been controversial for a couple of reasons — some see it as serving data centers at Ellendale and Jamestown and some see it as facilitating Minnesota’s need for green energy from North Dakota wind farms.
Otter Tail Power and Montana-Dakota Utilities have said JETx will support the reliability of the electrical grid in the Jamestown area.
The JETx project featured prominently in the discussion of House Bill 1258 during the 2025 legislative session. The bill gave the PSC zoning authority on large power lines, trumping local ordinances. The bill means that utility companies can build as close as 500 feet from a residence. Some townships had tried to keep the power line as much as a half-mile from residences, more than five times the state standard.
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