About
Bette Grande is the state government relations manager at the Heartland Institute, an organization known for its persistent denial of climate science. She is also the CEO and president of the Roughrider Policy Institute (RPI), a State Policy Network (SPN) affiliate established to “defend liberty and free enterprise in North Dakota.”
For the last two of Grande’s 18 years as a North Dakota state representative (1996–2014), she chaired the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force (2012–14). She previously worked as the policy director for WallBuilders’ Pro-Family Legislative Network, a Christian anti-choice organization that promotes “traditional family values.”
Both as a state representative and in her subsequent career moves, Grande has been a strong advocate for the oil and gas industry and a fierce opponent of regulation. “At a time when our national economy needs jobs and stable domestic energy, the biggest challenge we face is Washington, D.C.,” she wrote in a 2013 ALEC publication. After leaving the North Dakota House in 2014, she started posting her “articles and observations about energy and environmental issues” on a blog she calls “Frac Baby Frac.
In her role at Heartland, Grande conducts extensive state-level anti-ESG lobbying. Likening ESG investment practices to social credit scoring and discrimination against fossil fuel interests, she has participated in various public forums and Heartland’s podcast to discuss how ESG measures are actually attacks on “companies in politically disfavored industries.”
Grande earned a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of North Dakota. Her family operates a business in the Williston Basin, which is in the heart of North Dakota’s oil-rich Bakken formation.
Actions
- Signed a letter from Advancing American Freedom (AAF) to U.S. House leaders demanding that President Biden’s “woke 401(k)” rule be repealed (3/28/23)
- Signed a letter from the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) warning Congress about the “ESG scam” (11/14/22)
Grande has lobbied in favor of anti-ESG legislation in the following states: