Hoeven announces funding for EERC research, pilot program for veterans

May 3—GRAND FORKS — U.S. Sen. John Hoeven was in Grand Forks Friday to announce a $5.1 million award to the Energy and Environmental Research Center for continued carbon capture monitor and the expansion of opportunity for veterans seeking pilot training.

Hoeven, R-N.D., went first to the EERC to announce the award he helped secure. The EERC was previously

awarded $1.4 million for developing carbon capture

and storage research to explore the expansion of the Dakota Gasification Company's Great Plains Synfuels Plant in Beulah, North Dakota, last year. With the additional $5.1 million to help continue the project, $6.5 million has been awarded for the monitoring project.

"This technology is going to make sure that we continue to have this energy industry," Hoeven said at the EERC. "We're going to compete, and we're going to win because we're going to drive the future with the best technology. And who is the tip of the spear? The EERC."

Hoeven continued by saying this award, along with an

$11 million award announced last week

to the EERC for oil recovery and carbon capture in unconventional oil reservoirs, helps with the current and future energy demands of the country.

"How do we make sure (the Bakken Formation is) economically viable in the long term?" Hoeven said. "This funding that we get that you deploy is what enables us to keep a coal-fired energy industry in this state when others are going out of business."

The technologies the EERC is researching will help mitigate land demands and disruption for this and future carbon capture in North Dakota.

"If you're doing a seismic survey, you have to roll out a bunch of seismic nodes and a lot of equipment in the field, and that can be pretty taxing to move cattle around and ask the landowners to do that," John Hunt, EERC geoscientist said. "We're focusing on these more sustainable methods, that are a lower footprint and more cost-effective."

EERC CEO Charles Gorecki said this research also helps the technology become commercially viable.

"It's advancing that technology to the point where it's a commercially viable technology for monitoring permanent, safe, long-term storage," Gorecki said. "This work is building off of more than 20 years of work that all you and I have done here at the EERC with our partners."

Following the EERC visit, Hoeven stopped by UND's Memorial Union to speak during the Vets2Wings program's end-of-the-year luncheon. The program is a pilot training initiative made for veterans that helps to cover costs of flight training that aren't covered by benefit programs like the GI Bill. Hoeven secured $2.5 million to establish Vets2Wings as a pilot program beginning in 2022.

Since November 2022, 77 students have been in the program — five women and 72 men. Students in the program have an average GPA of 3.54 and a 96% average on Federal Avation Administration (FAA) written exams. There will be 10 graduates in 2024 from the program.

Isaac Goedtke, one of the students in the program, said being part of it relieves a lot of stress.

"This program is a blessing," he said. "For us to be put in this special group, it makes you able to train more frequently and train faster."

Hoeven thanked the veterans present for their service and congratulated UND for having so many firsts in the world of aviation, such as having the Vets2Wings program. He also spoke about his recent legislative work to further secure the program through the American Aviator Act, something he has worked on alongside Sen. Tammy Baldwin D-Wis. The act, which is in the FAA's reauthorization bill, will foramlly authorize the prgraom through the 2028 fiscal year.

Hoeven also cosponsored legislation regarding air traffic controllers, which aligns with his goal to establish UND as the first univeristy in the country where air traffic controller graduates can go directly into the workforce instead of attending the FAA's Air Traffic Controller Academy in Oklahoma City. This was a topic Hoeven also brought up in

a recent visit.

He reiterated the fact that UND is the first university to have a program like this Vets2Wings, and is now leading the way for others to follow.

"You're the only one doing it," he said. "You showed the world how to do it."

These programs, he said, are good not just for UND, but for America. There is a need for pilots and air traffic controllers that he hopes these programs will address, and he has already seen across his travels the amount of UND graduates fulfilling aviation roles.

"Anywhere and everywhere I go, I see UND grads flying," he said. "Everywhere in the world."