Author: @SoDakCampaigns

Unleash American Energy to Power America’s Future
By Sen. John Thune 

For the last four years, the Biden administration’s energy policies put our country on a dangerous path toward a future defined by less affordable and less reliable energy. America is rich in energy resources, and we should be leveraging those resources for a safe, secure, and affordable energy supply. Energy is critical for national security and economic prosperity, which is why unleashing American energy dominance is a priority for President Trump and Republicans in Congress.

Over the last few years, we’ve seen some of the warning signs of a coming energy crisis. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation warns of “mounting resource adequacy challenges” in the next decade. A headline in the Washington Post last year declared, “Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power.”

In the not-too-distant future, America is going to need much more power. One reason for the increase in demand is data centers for artificial intelligence. It takes roughly 10 times as much electricity to run a ChatGPT query as it takes to run a Google search. Imagine the energy demands of AI at scale. Failing to leverage all our energy resources is simply an unforced error.

President Trump is taking this challenge seriously. On his first day in office, he declared an energy emergency with the goal of producing more energy, building more infrastructure, and ultimately bringing energy prices down. Senate Democrats don’t share this sense of urgency. Recently, they attempted to end the energy emergency, calling it a “sham.” Fortunately, their efforts failed, and President Trump and Republicans will proceed with our efforts to unleash American energy dominance.

The U.S. Senate is also moving to eliminate some of the Biden’s administration’s anti-energy regulations. We recently passed legislation to block Democrats’ natural gas tax from going into effect. This $6 billion tax would limit energy production and increase costs for energy producers – and ultimately increase Americans’ utility bills. Not to mention it would put tens of thousands of jobs at risk.

The Senate also blocked the Biden administration’s marine archeology rule, which was just another way to slow down production and heap more costs on producers. Offshore oil and gas projects have long been required to submit an archeological report before drilling if their project area was thought to include shipwrecks, settlements, or other archeological sites. The Biden administration expanded this to all projects, even when nothing suggests the project will be near archeological sites. It was just one of many actions from the Biden administration designed to end energy production in America’s waters.

Energy is one of our nation’s most critical assets. For the last four years, the Biden administration took a number of actions to limit use of these resources. Those days are over. Under President Trump and Republican majorities in Congress, we will leverage our natural resources to produce more energy, lower prices, and restore American energy dominance.

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Insolvency is not an option
By Rep. Dusty Johnson
February 28, 2025

BIG Update

President Trump and his Administration have been in office for just over a month, and the results at the southern border are remarkable. In a single month, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested more than 20,000 illegal aliens. Under Biden’s Administration, ICE arrested 33,000 for the entire year. The Trump Administration has seen a 627% increase in arrests – removing criminal illegal aliens from our communities. Legislation passed by Congress, like the Laken Riley Act, has been effective in helping ICE arrest and remove these criminals.

Additionally, daily border encounters have dropped 93% and hit a 15-year low. Working together, we are securing the border and keeping America safe. Promises made, promises kept.

BIG Idea

Welfare programs exist to help people who need it the most – they are not a handout to those who are unwilling to work. Yet, each year, millions of dollars in SNAP benefits (commonly referred to as food stamps) get sent to adults who are able-bodied and without children who are choosing not to work. In fact, there are 42 million people receiving benefits, which is the same number of enrollees seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, but 64% of the able-bodied adults on food stamps don’t work at all.

I introduced a bill, the America Works Act, to ensure that people receiving these benefits work at least 20 hours a week. As a former SNAP recipient, I’ve experienced firsthand how work is the best pathway out of poverty. Let me be clear – these work requirements would not be applied to children, pregnant mothers, people over 65 years of age, and those who are disabled.

The success of enforcing work requirements is clear. For states like Arkansas, Missouri, and Mississippi that implemented work requirements, able-bodied adults who began working saw their income double or triple within a few months or years. I want to help people up and out of poverty, not leave them there.

Fox News wrote about my bill – read that article here.

BIG News

America is $37 trillion in debt, and trillions more in debt get added each year with current spending levels. Essential programs are headed for insolvency within a decade if real reforms are not made and waste, fraud, and abuse are not ended. Now is the time to reverse the curse and put America on the right path.

Thankfully, this week, House Republicans put forward a goal for significant cuts across the federal government. Don’t worry, cuts will not be made to Social Security and SNAP benefits for hungry children, pregnant women, elderly, and disabled individuals. This bill will allow Congress to enhance border security, lock in your current tax rate and child tax credit, and unleash American energy.

I was proud to vote for this budget framework. I refuse to stand idly by and allow America to fall off a fiscal cliff. Congress must restore fiscal sanity to protect the financial health of our country for our children and generations to come.

Click here or the image above for Johnson’s interview with CBS News

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It Is Time to Reset
By: Gov. Larry Rhoden
February 28, 2025

Living on a ranch, I’ve never had much time for technology. I’ve always preferred riding a horse over online entertainment, and at work, I stick to the traditional pen-and-paper approach. However, I do rely on my phone daily. And when my technology fails, the first suggestion I often hear is, “Have you tried restarting your device?” Nine times out of ten, this simple solution works.

I think the same concept can be applied to other problems in our lives. Sometimes all we need is a reset — to pause, regroup, and keep moving forward.

I recently announced Project Prison Reset – a working group that will determine the best path forward for a new prison. We’ve received the message that the current prison plan does not have buy-in this legislative session. We’ve also heard agreement from pretty much everyone that we need a new prison. I signed an Executive Order to stand up the working group, and they’ll get to work on April 2.

This working group is our “reset” button. Everything that came before is in the rearview mirror. From now on, we’re looking forward.

Project Prison Reset convenes a group of solution seekers, including House representatives, senators, and outside parties. It will be chaired by Lieutenant Governor Tony Venhuizen. I intentionally appointed both proponents and opponents of the current plan to have a seat at the table because it is important to listen to different perspectives. I am empowering this group to determine the best path forward and build buy-in to whatever that solution may be.

This reset is an important step towards improving public safety in our state. But it’s also time for a reset on a broader level.

When I became your Governor, I pledged to reset – with the press, the legislature, and the public. I see so much division today – even between those within the same political party. As South Dakotans, we need to regain perspective and unite. We need to talk with each other and not at each other. We need to reset.

Ronald Reagan once wisely said, “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally – not a 20 percent traitor.” As fellow South Dakotans, we are all friends and allies. And we have so much to be proud of!

South Dakota boasts the lowest unemployment rate, the highest birth rate, and the fastest decline in overdose deaths in America. We are also the number one state to support the Second Amendment and have the lowest child-care costs in the nation. There is much to celebrate!

South Dakota is “Open for Opportunity,” and I’m excited for the journey ahead. We are on the right path. With a simple reset, I believe we can achieve even greater things. By uniting together, I am confident that we will keep South Dakota strong, safe, and free.

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According to their website, State Reps. Karla Lems and Mark Lapka are participants in an Iowa anti-pipeline group calling themselves “the Free Soil Foundation,” as led in part by former Congressman Steve King.  King, whom you will remember…

King is an opponent of immigration and multiculturalism, and has a long history of racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric and white nationalist affiliations. In 2018 The Washington Post described King as “the Congressman most openly affiliated with white nationalism.” King has been criticized for his affiliation with white supremacist ideas, made controversial statements against immigrants, and supported European right-wing populist and far-right politicians who have engaged in racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Read that here.

Great company there, Representatives.   Steve King is also (unfortunately) the speaker at the Pennington County Lincoln Day Dinner.

In the week and a half that the populists have assumed control of the Republican Party, what have they managed to accomplish so far?

So far?…

** Despite being on life-support financially, the SDGOP’s Exec Board thinks they need/can afford an audit, with up to two-thousand dollars budgeted. Even better, per the new chair Jim Eschenbaum, “The auditor we intend to use feels they will be able to complete the audit for substantially less than our budget amount.”   So, are they buying an “audit youself” package at WalMart?  I spoke with a CPA today who laughed when I mentioned this, and was told that getting a new business set up and connected with sales tax is $2k, and an honest to god audit is more in the neighborhood of $20-25,000. I had also heard the same thing  last week from an attorney who has been involved in an audit process.   Whatever they’re doing, it’s not an audit.

** They’ve posted the resolution they passed at the Central Committee meeting against HB 1052 at least 2 or three times on facebook. Amazingly, despite posting a resolution, no one really gives a sh*t.

 

** They apparently did get e-mail set up. With this record pace of progress, they might be ready to send out a fundraising appeal. Maybe by mid-September?

** And, new chair Jim Eschenbaum is telling people from his Eschenbaum for GOP Chairman facebook account that “transitions take time” and they “want to be fully transitioned as soon as possible.”    You know, in their defense, there are other groups on the Internet that also counsel that “Everyone’s timeline is different” and that folks “need time to figure out how they want to transition.”

So, please wish the SDGOP well with their personal journey.

House Bill 1069, which will take illegal vaping products shipped in via UPS from China off of store shelves and out of kids hands continues it’s path through the South Dakota legislature after it sailed through the House of Representatives on a 57-11 vote.

However, the word from the 3rd & 4th floors is that Big Vape has an army of lobbyists – nearly a dozen at last count – preparing to pounce on State Senators to try to stop the measure, which would limit the sale of vaping products in South Dakota to only those that have received FDA approval (or at the least, they have applied for it).

At this writing, there are literally 1000-1500 products that meet (at the least) the applied for FDA approval test. But the Big Vape interests are fighting to keep products that have NOT gone through any clearance, review or application to actually be sold in the United States to remain on their shelves.  They want to keep selling the things they have just bought off the internet, and they want State Government to ignore it.

The US Government’s Food and Drug Administration has not sat still on these products with unregulated chemicals that have not been authorized for sale, such as this 2022 warning letter from the FDA to one organization doing business, calling itself Fifty Bar:

FDA has determined that you manufacture and offer for sale or distribution to customers in the United States ENDS products that lack a marketing authorization order, including: Fifty Bar 6500 Puff Rechargeable Disposable Mint, Fifty Bar 6500 Puff Rechargeable Disposable Vanilla Custard, and Fifty Bar 6500 Puff Rechargeable Disposable Pacific Cooler.

The tobacco products listed above are new tobacco products because they were not commercially marketed in the United States as of February 15, 2007. These products do not have FDA marketing authorization orders in effect under section 910(c)(1)(A)(i) of the FD&C Act and are not otherwise exempt from the marketing authorization requirement. Therefore, these products are adulterated under section 902(6)(A) of the FD&C Act (21 U.S.C. § 387b(6)(A)).

and..

FDA has determined that your firm markets new tobacco products in the United States that lack premarket authorization. All new tobacco products on the market without the statutorily required premarket authorization are marketed unlawfully and are subject to enforcement action at FDA’s discretion.

and..

Please note that tobacco products offered for import into the United States that appear to be adulterated and/or misbranded may be detained or refused admission.

Read that letter from the Food & Drug Administration here.

Fifty Bar – with principal Brady Bates as named on the letter – was warned last September (9/12/24) that they are selling products considered adulterated by the FDA.  So, what action do they take to remedy this?

In South Dakota, they hired a lobbyist to try to stop legislation to take what the FDA considers adulterated products off store shelves:

I don’t think I’ve seen that one before. Where someone is told that their product is marketed unlawfully, subject to enforcement action, and considered adulterated at the federal level.  So, they hire a lobbyist to keep these products on the shelves.  Which must be big business, because why else would a Texas-based vape company hire a South Dakota lobbyist right before the committee meeting?

Also sending a lobbyist to fight the measure in committee designed to regulate the currently unregulated vaping products shipped in from China was a lobbyist representing the Washington DC based Vapor Technology Association.   Why do we care about them?

• Because the VTA is the only U.S. based “International Partner” of The Electronic Cigarette Professional Committee of China Electronics Chamber of Commerce (ECCC), the Chinese-government-controlled vapor industry association. You can see them featuring the VTA’s activities here, where the Chinese vaping group praises them on their work to “escort the standardized and prosperous development of the global e-cigarette industry.”  Literally, VTA wants SD legislators to vote against this bill and vote FOR their international partner in China!  
• In other states that have passed legislation of this nature, the VTA has also brought suit to try to keep the pipeline open for illegal vaping products. In fact, they just lost a case in federal court in Kentucky trying to stop their law, where the opinion expressly noted “The Court cannot, and will not, find that anyone has a legally protected interest in violating unambiguous federal law.”

Senators can expect that their phones and e-mails are going to be hit this weekend from those who have an interest in keeping the unlawful, and as far as the FDA is concerned, adulterated products on store shelves which will end up in the hands of South Dakota youth.

As opposed to those selling unapproved vaping products, and partners of the Chinese vaping industry, House Bill 1069 has been supported by those who do it right, and sell legal products. That list includes the SD Police Chiefs, Melissa Magstadt, Secretary of the Department of Health, the Sheriff’s Association, Petroleum Marketers (who don’t want to sell the illegal stuff), the Department of Revenue, Protecting SD Kids, Concerned Women of America, and the Attorney General’s office.

The bottom line is that Senators should resist the push from those who are selling the illegal and unknown Chinese vaping products and their lobbyists, and to pass House Bill 1069 next week. 

Attorney General Jackley Encourages Public to Safeguard Personal Information As State Observes National Consumer Protection Week

PIERRE, S.D. – South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley urges South Dakota consumers to take time, especially during next week’s National Consumer Protection Week, to protect their personal and financial information. National Consumer Protection Week starts Sunday, March 2, and runs through Saturday, March 8.

“The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division received 68,000 calls, inquiries, and complaints in Fiscal Year 2024 from consumers who reported they had been a victim of a scam,” said Attorney General Jackley. “Scammers are becoming more adept at using social media to intimidate consumers, regardless of their age, into providing personal and financial information.”

Other consumer protection tips from the Consumer Protection Division are:

*** Do not give into high pressured sales tactics.  Stop, take a moment and review any offer.

***Buying a gift card to pay someone?  DON’T.  It’s a scam.

*** Always get any repair work, construction orders and other types of contracts in writing with expected cost estimates and deadlines.

*** Don’t trust your caller ID.  If you don’t know the number, DON’T answer the call. Hang up on robocalls.

*** Don’t provide money or personal information via telephone or internet to an individual or organization that you don’t know or haven’t verified.

*** Be cautious about “free” trial offers.

*** Do not deposit a check and then wire money.

*** Be wary of any caller who tells you not to tell anyone else about the call.

*** Talk to someone you trust before you provide money or personal information to someone who contacts you.

Consumers who believe they may have been a victim of any type of scam should contact the Attorney General’s Office’s Consumer Protection Division at 1-800-300-1986 or at https://consumer.sd.gov/, You may be helping someone else out by reporting what you’ve encountered.

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Thune files cloture on Tuberville’s Protection Of Women And Girls In Sports Act. Sets up a vote for next week

— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) February 27, 2025

Gov. Rhoden Announces Project Prison Reset

PIERRE, S.D. –  Today, Governor Larry Rhoden announced Project Prison Reset, a working group that will determine the best path forward for a new prison. Project Prison Reset is made possible through Executive Order 2025-01.

“We’ve received the message that the current prison plan does not have buy-in this legislative session. We’ve also heard agreement from pretty much everyone that we need a new prison,” said Governor Larry Rhoden. “This working group is our ‘reset’ button. Everything that came before is in the rearview mirror. From now on, we’re looking forward.”

The working group will meet every four weeks beginning on April 2, 2025. During that time, members will answer three questions:

• Whether we need a new prison – a clear “yes;”
• How big it should be; and
• Where it should go.

Recommendations made by this working group will be presented at a Special Session on July 22, 2025. Governor Rhoden also promised to hire a consultant to make sure the working group is working from the same set of facts on the need for a new prison.

Project Prison Reset will include the following eight House members, seven Senators, and six or seven outside individuals:

• The House members will be Speaker Hansen, Majority Leader Odenbach, Speaker Pro Tempore Lems, Tim Reisch, Greg Jamison, Brian Mulder, Jack Kolbeck, and Erin Healy;
• The Senators will be President Pro Tempore Karr, Majority Leader Mehlhaff, Ernie Otten, Mark Lapka, Steve Kolbeck, Joy Hohn, and Jamie Smith; and
• The outside individuals will include Lt. Governor Venhuizen, who will chair the group; a judge; a behavioral health specialist; a Chief of Police; a Sheriff; a State’s Attorney; and Attorney General Jackley.

You can find a picture of Governor Rhoden announcing Project Prison Reset here.

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Saw this on a press release that went out yesterday from the SD Free-dumb caucus. While Rep. Aaron Aylward had been in charge of the group since it’s inception, it appears that the awful human being and State Representative Phil Jensen is now being touted as Chairman of the group:

 

This is the same Phil Jensen who was stripped of his House Education Committee vice-chairmanship after attacking the Huron School District, among other things.