Good Neighbors
By House Majority Leader Will Mortenson and Senate Majority Leader Casey Crabtree
February 3, 2024
South Dakota is a special place. We are blessed with natural wonders, fertile soil, room to roam, and freedoms that most people in the world envy. What makes South Dakota exceptional are the people and how we treat one another. Here in South Dakota, we embody the value of being a good neighbor. From helping with ranch chores, harvest, child care, or an emergency, South Dakotans are always stepping up to help others.
Just like any family, there are times we may disagree. Today, we are faced with strong feelings on both sides of the land use debate related to carbon dioxide pipelines. The proposed project has led to emotional conversations in the Legislature, at county commission meetings, and around dining room tables.
Going into the 2024 Session, both of us as Republican Majority Leaders are committed to finding a path forward that benefits landowners and sets clear expectations of regulatory and procedural requirements for those who want to do business in South Dakota. For those who want to become our neighbors and do business here, they will need to do so the South Dakota way, as good neighbors.
We know this is a contentious issue, but we also know South Dakotans can come together to enact good public policy. Both of us have talked to landowners opposed to the project as well as landowners willing to work on easements. Based on those conversations, it is clear that the time is now for impactful change related to the planning, siting, surveying, permitting, and safety mitigation regarding CO2 infrastructure projects while also reaffirming protections to landowners.
Last year, the two of us and our respective chambers were on the opposite side of this issue, and we left Pierre in a stalemate. After lengthy discussions with landowners, ag producers, landowner-rights groups, county commissioners, and our colleagues in the Legislature, it became clear that we all agreed far more than we disagreed. Together, we have worked on proposals that focus on a project development process; one that promotes respect, fairness, and certainty for everyone involved.
There is widespread agreement that South Dakota needs to be forward thinking. As a state dependent upon agriculture, our prosperity depends on national and global markets, and we must embrace emerging industries that leverage our commodities. Doing so creates jobs, feeds families, pays off loans, puts dollars into local economies, and, most importantly, helps create a brighter future for our state and its next generation. This is another way we are focused on helping people because a rising tide lifts all boats. A strong ag economy in South Dakota helps everyone.
Policy reform is needed, and that will require good-faith discussions based on facts among everyone willing to have a serious discussion on protecting property rights while also setting in place a process for projects with tremendous public benefit. With that as our starting point, we have introduced legislation to keep our state open for business while reaffirming our commitment to protecting the people of South Dakota.
We have introduced three bills this year that we are asking our fellow legislators to support–HB 1185, HB 1186, and SB 201. As a package, these bills address many of the concerns we have heard since the CO2 pipeline projects began. These landowner protections include:
1. Additional compensation to landowners when building for-profit infrastructure projects.
2. Safety enhancements, including additional minimum depth to 4 feet and required release of all dispersion and impact models.
3. Liability protection, including lifetime repair of drain tile, indemnification for harm done to land, livestock, and residents.
4. Improved land surveying process. For survey and siting, planners must provide a description of the area, anticipated date(s) and time(s), length of time needed, work description, and contact information for the company. Landowners may challenge the request within 30 days.
5. Project planners must provide additional safety and land-use studies to justify the project need, their ability to protect landowners, and ability to follow through on their commitments.
6. Land agents for CO2 pipeline projects must be South Dakota-based.
7. Easements for CO2 pipeline projects expire after five years if the developer is unable to construct the project.
This is truly a consequential year for lawmakers in Pierre. We can come together and support common sense reforms that protect landowners, we can fight to squander economic development that benefits the state as a whole, or we can leave session in a stalemate once again.
Together, we’re committed to continuing the South Dakota tradition of being good neighbors and right-sizing the issues that have emerged to forge a path forward that respects landowners, creates fairness for landowners and developers, and provides certainty for all parties on the process to be followed for infrastructure projects in our state.
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So what they are really saying is, we understand you don’t want this on your property, but we don’t give two cents about private property rights, and us as landowners don’t have the ability to say NO THANK YOU!!!! I guess the next time you go out to eat, be prepared to eat the one thing on the menu because you don’t have the right to say NO THANKS!!!!
Yeah. Crabtree is taking a dump this session. Youngberg was the real deal.
-If we wanted compensation for our land we would have signed an easement. We don’t want money, we want to be able to choose what we want for our property and how to keep our family/livestock safe in the future.
-A good neighbor policy would be to take eminent domain off of the table to protect property rights.
-Give landowners a chance to say yes or no.
-How are we going to entice people to move to SD while telling them they don’t have protection of their property rights?
-A liability protection clause can say all it wants but it will be twisted when there’s a rupture leaving liability laying on the landowners lap. We have coverage denial letters from insurance companies for land that has a CO2 pipeline.
-We had a “local land agent” speak with us and he was not forthright regarding how many of our neighbors had already signed easements. At that point, we deemed him untrustworthy.
-The Summit representative we met with said they were done moving the route and threatened us with the use of eminent domain. Does this sound neighborly?
– Last year all we heard was there wasn’t anything our representatives could do for us, it was all in the PUC’s hands. Well, the PUC made their decision, yet here we are again because Summit didn’t get their way.
At least it looks like they are going to do schoolhouse rock and pass a statute rather than torturing interpretations to fit CO2 into the definition of “commodities” under 49-7-11. 49-7-11 was passed in 1980, which is way before Kyoto. We have a long tradition (and a codified one pursuant to 2-14-1) of interpreting statutes pursuant to their ordinary meaning. Therefore, this whole thing has shook a hornet’s nest particularly when our Supreme Court came out swinging against Kelo in Benson v. State. We had an “A” rating in property rights from the Institute for Justice. Therefore, this whole thing was a bit of a shock to the system. I was looking at getting a little farm. No more. What’s the point if you don’t know what you own. I’m very much against this, but I like the players on both sides, so I will try to be mellow. My major point of contention is that they need more than just a liability regime. They should take out a page of the Mike Rounds Playbook and solve squabbles over liability exposure by ensuring that there is an independent third-party insurance company to pay claims if necessary.
Simplify this by taking eminent domain off the table and require them to be bonded for the entire project, from cradle to grave.
I love the farmer mentality. It is OK if they get subsidized crop insurance paid for by taxpayers. It is OK that most of their purchases are tax free. Subsidies and disaster payments are liberally paid even when harm is questionable. No reason to plant buffer strips to reduce ag runoff. In fact , build your feedlot on a slope into the nearest creek. Let your cattle drink and bath in public rivers and streams. But by golly that land is yours!
I fully support landowner rights. However we all must look at what is best for the public good. It appears global warming is the real deal. Ag producers contribute via animal flatulance , fertilizer usage , diesel emissions and CO2 releases from ethanol production. An easy way to contribute to a cleaner environment is containment of CO2. This is easily and harmlessly accomplished by CO2 capture and pipeline transport for disposal. Landowners are fairly compensated for easements. Corn prices are supported as ethanol has a new source of income. Livestock producers buy a tremendous DDG feed product at a discount to corn. The largest emission of CO2 in South Dakota is minimized or eliminated. Critical rural jobs are preserved. Not sure what is wrong with this?
My solution is simple. Your land is yours. If you do not want to grant a paid easement great. But you should forfeit all future insurance or crop subsidies. In addition start paying taxes on your purchases of fertilizer , feed , fuel and seed.The irony of this situation is you have a mechanism to stop progress by not granting paid easement. I have no path to insure you pay your fair share of taxes or insurance premiums. Maybe it is time to look at tax fairness for all in our great state!
If we are intellectually honest, ethanol is probably the dumbest idea that has gained widespread acceptance in society. It just shows the power of incentives and the power of propaganda. Food is the most basic safety net and we are going to raise the cost of food so we can run these autos around. We use up as many hydrocarbons making the corn as you get out of the ethanol. We also don’t count the cost of the topsoil that goes away forever. Now, they want to push the CO2 underground and push SOF. If we were serious, we would push nuclear, but we are not so instead it’ll be more tax credit games. Whole thing is illogical, but it works for people in power so it’ll happen.
Maybe you should think about that when they come and tell you that you need to move because your house is in the way of progress and they are going to give you a third of what it is worth and you don’t have a say either way.
There’s nothing neighborly about land condemnation. Just another example of the brutal hand of government at work.
I think more drunken text admonishments by the senate president pro temp would solve this convoluted mess.