Dr. (and State Senator) Jeff Monroe had a piece at ArgusLeader.com on the efforts by the left wing environmentalists to try to derail the Dakota Access Pipeline that’s currently undergoing hearings with the Public Utilities Commission:

Environmentalists don’t like this pipeline project, but then again, they don’t like anything that increases America’s energy independence and makes the most of our vast oil and gas resources. Keep in mind these environmentalists won’t be happy until the fossil fuel industry that powers our economy is more or less reduced to a bare minimum. Forget about affordable and abundant energy, especially for our vehicles and homes. Their new motto is “keep it locked in the ground.”

Fortunately for South Dakotans, the state’s permitting process only gives the authorities one year to reach decisions on permit applications. So we won’t see the kind of endless foot dragging and dithering and politicking that was so much in view at the White House and State Department over Keystone XL. Let’s hope we get a better outcome here for DAPL that we got from Washington on Keystone XL.

Read it all here.

Hear, hear!

Noem: Support for South Dakota Rail is Good News for Producers, Shippers, and Economy

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Representative Kristi Noem today applauded the U.S. Department of Transportation for prioritizing investments into South Dakota rail through a partnership between the state and the Rapid City Pierre & Eastern Railroad (RCP&E).  After a months-long push by the South Dakota delegation and others, RCP&E earned a $6 million Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) Grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation in order to increase the railroad’s capacity.

“Nearly every commodity we produce in South Dakota is exported and shipped via rail,” said Noem, who joined Senators Thune and Rounds in writing Transportation Secretary Foxx about the grant earlier this year.  “Disruptions or delays in rail service have an immediate impact.  That’s what makes investing in our railways so critical to creating a healthy economy.  The TIGER Grant is one way that our country makes that investment.  I’m grateful the Secretary saw the merit of this project and recognized South Dakota freight rail as a worthy priority.”

In June, Noem, alongside Senators John Thune and Mike Rounds, wrote to Secretary Foxx urging the full and fair consideration of RCP&E’s grant application and stressing the railroad’s importance to South Dakota producers and shippers.  Two months later, the congresswoman visited the RCP&E Yard Office near Rapid City, visiting with a number of the railroad’s 185 employees.

The TIGER grant announced today aims to increase the railroad’s capacity by constructing a siding near Phillip, S.D., and replacing approximately 10 miles of rail near Huron, S.D.

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Obama EPA’s Smog Rule Will Have Widespread Impact on U.S. Economy

“When it comes to the debilitating impact its rules have on jobs, the economy, and hard-working American taxpayers, the Obama EPA never fails to disappoint.”

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) issued the following statement after the Obama Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) final rule to lower the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone, or smog, was published in the Federal Register. The new standard in an unprecedented 70 parts-per-billion (ppb), down from the 75 ppb standard set in 2008.

“When it comes to the debilitating impact its rules have on jobs, the economy, and hard-working American taxpayers, the Obama EPA never fails to disappoint,” said Thune. “This rule, as I’ve warned since it was first introduced, will have a serious negative impact on energy prices, job growth, and future economic development. That’s why I’ve introduced the Clean Air, Strong Economies Act – or CASE Act – a bill that would prioritize smog reduction where it is most serious.”

Counties that exceed the ground-level ozone standard are considered non-attainment areas and will be subjected to stiff federal penalties, increased business costs, restrictions on infrastructure investment, and lost highway dollars. Areas in marginal attainment will face steep challenges in attracting new economic development.

On March 17, 2015, Thune and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) introduced the bipartisan CASE Act (S. 751), which would stem the economic harm from a lower ozone standard by requiring the EPA to focus on the worst areas for air quality before lowering the ground-level ozone standard. Thune and Manchin’s bill would also require the EPA to consider the costs and feasibility of the lower standard, which the EPA currently does not consider. Finally, the bill would prohibit the EPA from using unreliable modeling to expand non-attainment areas to many rural counties that otherwise would not be impacted by the expensive regulation.

In 2008, the permitted level of ground-level ozone, or smog, was lowered from 84 ppb to the current 75 ppb. Currently, 227 counties in 27 states are considered in non-attainment with the 75 ppb standard. The CASE Act would require 85 percent of areas currently not meeting the 75 ppb standard to meet compliance before the EPA could lower it further.

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Thune Statement on U.S. DOT Grant Funding for South Dakota Rail Projects

“I applaud Secretary Foxx’s decision to approve these important rail projects, which will help increase rail network capacity and fluidity across our region.”

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) released the following statement after Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx announced that the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has approved $6 million in Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant funding for two South Dakota rail projects. Thune led the South Dakota congressional delegation in writing to Secretary Foxx in June and Thune followed up last month to underscore the impact that the federal funding would have when it comes to key upgrades to rail infrastructure in South Dakota.

The South Dakota Department of Transportation (SDDOT) and Rapid City, Pierre, and Eastern (RCP&E) Railroad partnered together in this joint project by committing $6.4 million in investments. Along with the state and private funding, the TIGER grant will provide for a total of $12.4 million that will be used for a new track siding near Philip, South Dakota, and much-needed track upgrades near Huron, South Dakota.

“I applaud Secretary Foxx’s decision to approve these important rail projects, which will help increase network capacity and fluidity across our region,” said Thune. “This funding, matched with the funds that SDDOT and RCP&E have already committed, will help ensure these important upgrades can begin without delay. These improvements will not only support job creation in the region, but they will attract future business development as well.”

Thune is the chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, which has jurisdiction over the DOT and freight railroad matters. Thune also serves on the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee. Both committees underscore the critical importance that the agriculture sector has in South Dakota’s economy, and in particular, how vital rail service is when it comes to getting raw goods and commodities to markets across the United States and all over the world.

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I’ve been spending some of my free time lately working on a personal project that has interested me on and off for some time. I’ve always been interested in the family’s genealogy and had been working on it at ancestry.com, but my subscription had ran out, so I left it alone for a while.

More recently, my wife had mentioned it to a couple of her relatives, as I’d found proof for some of the family lore about how township in Minnesota had been named after one of her predecessors who had lost his legs from frostbite, but went on to lead a successful life.

It got me looking again at it, so I renewed my subscription to reactivate my stored information, and put some more work into it.

While the Powers side of the family is tough to research, because apparently the Irish didn’t keep as good as civil records as others, I found that my mothers side has tremendous historic provenance.  So far, I’ve found relatives from the civil war, at least two or more who fought in the revolutionary war, and one who was hacked to death by Indians in Jamestown.

Wait, what?

Yes, apparently I have a direct ancestor who was killed in the Jamestown Massacre of 1622.  John Cordray was born in 1573 in England, and died on March 22, 1622 in when the Powhatan came to settlements in the area under the auspices of trading.

What it ended up being was a coordinated series of surprise attacks by the Powhatan Confederacy that killed 347 people, a quarter of the English population of Jamestown, including men, women and children of all ages. Jamestown itself was spared, but 31 settlements were attacked.

I related it to my daughter who had a thing for the Pocahontas Disney movie when she was a little girl, who found herself horrified at the prospect that our kin was hacked to death by Pocahontas’ tribe. (Sorry. Stuff happens.)

I also found an ancestor – the first from this branch of the family in America – had to come here because he was banished from his native Switzerland in 1731.  That left me thinking “How do you get kicked out of an entire country? And Switzerland of all places. How do you get kicked out of the land of neutrality?”

In researching, according to a book of the Waltz Family History:

“In the seventeenth century the rich and powerful, supported by the crowned heads of Austria, began to usurp authority, and chose for their councils only their friends and relatives. By degrees these families perpetuated their possession of the government: by degrees the council renewed itself annually, until the Sovereign power became exclusively hereditary in the families of the great council.”

“Murmurings against the hereditary power of a few families began to burst forth in open revolts, but the ruling power, supported by decrees from the Pope of Rome and Austrian bayonets, enforced silence. Conspiracies were formed, the prisons, the executioner’s block, and banishment followed.”

“To unmask and expose the hypocrisy of the priest craft, and treachery to the constitutional rights of the people by the ruling families, our patriotic, liberty-loving, and noble great ancestor. Frederick Reinhart Waltz. became a martyr to the cause of civil and religious liberty, for which he was banished from his native Swiss home, in the Alpine range, to the wilds of America, in the year 1731.

“On his arrival in the city of New York, another insult, even worse than banishment, was perpetrated on this noble advocate of the rights of his fellow-men. by the sale of his body into slavery, to pay his passage across the sea, and required to labor eighteen months to redeem himself. To the memory of this man. who suffered banishment from his home and family, and the persecution of enforced slavery for the cause of liberty and justice, the Waltz families of America, especially those of his lineal descendant, owe honor and respect through all ages to come.”

Yeah… no editorial license taken there by the author. But, it does sound like I have a genetic pre-disposition to muckraking.  Although, I only end up getting exiled from Pierre from time to time, and he got kicked out of the entire land of chocolate.

But, the research marches on, and I’m still stumbling across neat things. I believe I found a reference of one of the Waltz family member selling property on Beacon Hill in Boston to John Hancock. And I’ve got a lot more relatives to go.

I’m sure there are many more gems to find. Regardless of banishment, hacking, and other family member misfortune.

From today’s KCCR:

Former Attorney General Candidate and husband of Anette Bosworth, Chad Haber, will make his initial court appearance Monday morning in Pierre on charges of offering a false or forged instrument and perjury.

and..

Attorney General Marty Jackley’s office will not handle Haber’s case as Haber ran against him in 2014; instead Hughes County States Attorney Wendy Kloeppner is prosecuting this case.

It is unclear at this time if Haber has hired at attorney or will represent himself.

read it all here.

I have to admit, I’m a bit curious whether he has a fool for an attorney or not.

Of course, Haber’s defender weighed in on it this morning.

One has to wonder, where (if) this will end.  Will Jackley next go after those who have dared to defend Bosworth?  Her supporters?
Maybe her children.

Read that silliness here.

Good grief. Apparently using the same pornographer as Bosworth did has clouded Howie’s judgement.

Putting an End to Sanctuary Cities
By Sen. John Thune

Earlier this week, Senate Democrats blocked the Senate from considering a bill that would have responded to serious crimes being committed by undocumented immigrants within the United States. The Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act would have penalized sanctuary jurisdictions across the United States by withholding certain federal funds, beefing up our current re-entry laws, and protecting local law enforcement officers who comply with federal immigration orders. But Senate Democrats said “no” to that common-sense approach.

Right now, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), 340 jurisdictions across our country have official policies discouraging cooperation with federal immigration enforcement officers. Among other things, that means that these jurisdictions regularly ignore what are called detainers – requests from DHS to hold an individual for deportation, usually for 48 hours. While a majority of cities require law enforcement officials to comply with these requests, officials in sanctuary cities regularly ignore them. As a result, approximately 1,000 undocumented criminals are released each month.

There is a terrible human cost to sanctuary cities’ decision to refuse to cooperate with U.S. immigration law. Kate Steinle, for one, paid that cost when she was murdered on a San Francisco pier while walking with her father on July 1, 2015. She was shot by an undocumented immigrant who had been convicted of no fewer than seven felonies prior to the city of San Francisco’s decision to ignore a DHS request and release this man into the population. And Kate Steinle is not alone. Unfortunately, too many similar events have occurred throughout the country.

The Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act, which has strong support from law enforcement organizations and victims’ families, would withhold federal funds under three grant programs and redirect those funds to jurisdictions that comply with federal immigration laws. It would also provide crucial legal protections to law enforcement officers that would allow them to cooperate with federal immigration authorities without fear of lawsuits, and it incorporates provisions of Kate’s Law – named after Kate Steinle – which would increase the maximum penalty for illegally re-entering the United States after being deported.

What happened to Kate Steinle on that pier in San Francisco should never have happened, and it likely could have been prevented if San Francisco had chosen to respect DHS’ request to hold her killer until immigration officers could pick him up. I hope that the Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act will eventually move forward in the Senate and that we will be able to send a version of this legislation to the president. It’s past time to start ensuring that dangerous criminals like Kate Steinle’s killer don’t end up back on our streets.

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EPA’s Faulty Analysis
By Senator Mike Rounds
October 23, 2015

South Dakotans continue to suffer from overreaching, misguided rules being promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Since President Obama took office, the EPA has issued more than 3,300 new final regulations, averaging more than one a day. Last year alone, these rules resulted in an estimated $42 billion in compliance costs, and the public has been forced to foot the bill. These additional costs have led to greater uncertainty for job creators and Ag producers, hindering economic growth across the nation.

We all want clean air and water, but we cannot let American families suffer and our economy falter as a result of EPA’s misguided attempts to overregulate natural resources and landowners’ ability to manage their land. That is why it is so important for the EPA to conduct scientific, factual and comprehensive analysis of the rules they are promulgating before they become final. Unfortunately, recent studies have shown that too often, the EPA is using incomplete, inaccurate and faulty data when analyzing the economic impact its rules will have on citizens and businesses.  As a result, the EPA is imposing costly, burdensome regulations on American families and businesses with little environmental benefit.

As Chairman of the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Management, and Regulatory Oversight, I recently held a hearing to address these reports. The goal of the hearing, entitled Oversight of Regulatory Impact Analyses for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regulations, was to analyze the process by which the EPA conducts Regulatory Impact Analyses (RIAs) on the new regulations it imposes on the American people.

Much has been said about the harmful effects of many of EPA’s new regulations, including President Obama’s ‘Waters of the U.S.’ rule and the so-called Clean Power Plan. This hearing examined how the agency writes these rules in the first place. By examining the EPA’s rulemaking process as a whole, we found fundamental flaws in the way the agency arrives at many of its conclusions when writing its rules and regulations.

We learned how the EPA fails to clearly and accurately quantify the costs and benefits of the regulations they are imposing. Even more troubling, the public, American businesses and state and local governments are prevented from understanding the real impact of the regulation and meaningfully participating in the rulemaking process. Instead, these sweeping regulatory decisions at EPA are being made by Washington bureaucrats with no knowledge of how they are affecting people on the ground. Meanwhile, American families pay the cost of these regulations through higher electricity costs, fewer job opportunities and a sluggish economy.

I thank my colleagues who participated in the hearing, as well as the witnesses for their informed analysis. The Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Management, and Regulatory Oversight will continue to oversee the rules being promulgated at the EPA. While this hearing was productive, it is clear that more must be done to overhaul the rulemaking process at an agency run amuck.

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Knowledge Changes Outcomes
By Rep. Kristi Noem
October 23, 2015

This year, nearly a quarter-million women will learn they have breast cancer.  As a result of earlier detection through screenings and awareness as well as advances in treatment options, the vast majority of these women will earn the title of “Survivor.”

In August, I had the opportunity to visit one of the medical centers working to combat this disease in South Dakota.  While there, I spoke with the doctors and nurses about all the ways they are getting information to patients quickly and accurately and how it can help throughout the treatment journey.  New technologies make this kind of information possible and obtainable.

For instance, the medical center I visited uses 3-D mammograms, which provide hundreds of pictures whereas standard mammograms produce just a handful.  As a result, the technology can find “slightly more cancers than standard digital mammograms and … result in 15% fewer false alarms – women called back for more tests and then found not to have cancer,” according to the American Cancer Society.  The improved level of accuracy is important.

The 3-D mammograms are one in a series of technological and scientific improvements that have resulted in better care and higher rates of survival.  The National Institute of Health’s Office of Research on Women’s Health has played a critical role in much of this research and I was proud to lead more than 80 female members of the U.S. House of Representatives in commemorating this agency’s 25^th anniversary earlier this year.

Some of the nation’s first female members of Congress advocated for this office to be established as a way to provide more insight into how diseases and medicines work within a woman’s body.  As a result of the research it’s conducted and supported, we’ve taken tremendous steps toward finding a cure for breast cancer, cervical cancer, and much more.  It’s saved the lives of countless women and I’m hopeful it will continue to produce positive results long into the future.

With a better understanding of the disease, we can each have a better understanding of how to detect – and even prevent – cancer.  As we come to the close of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I wanted to share a few of those tips with you.  First, I encourage you to schedule regular screenings.

Be aware of your family history.  If your mother or your sister has had breast cancer, you are twice as likely to develop it.

Take steps to improve your overall health, because staying active and maintaining a healthy weight can make you less susceptible to breast cancer.

Finally, know what to look for.  Lumps, redness, and swelling can all be indications, but don’t wait until you see something to schedule your screening.

I encourage you to take a few minutes this month to learn more about the disease and your family’s history with it.  Has breast cancer impacted your mother, an aunt or one of your sisters?  Have you spoken to your doctor about getting a screening?  Are there ways you can improve your overall health?  Take just one step today; it could make the difference.

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Criminal Justice Reform Update
A column by Gov. Dennis Daugaard:

Several years ago, I became aware of a problem with our state’s criminal justice system. South Dakota’s imprisonment rate was higher than any of our six neighboring states. Per capita, we were locking up 75 percent more men than North Dakota and four times as many women as Minnesota. Worst of all, our high imprisonment rate wasn’t making our public any safer. Our crime rate was falling, but not as fast as in other states. Continuing to follow our same path would force us to build a new women’s prison and a new men’s prison within 10 years.

To address the problem, the Chief Justice, legislative leadership and I formed a work group. We charged the work group with three goals: improve public safety, hold offenders more accountable and reduce corrections spending. The workgroup’s recommendations were incorporated into comprehensive criminal justice reform legislation that passed with bipartisan support.

To focus prison space on violent and career criminals, the reforms restructured our sentencing framework for non-violent offenders. We included new and improved probation accountability programs like drug and alcohol courts. We also made the largest investment in the history of our state into behavioral health for offenders with addictions and mental health needs.

Although it’s only been two and a half years since the Public Safety Improvement Act passed, we’re already seeing positive results. The prison population is now below initial projections. Thanks to the reforms, we will not need to build a new women’s prison this year. That alone will save us $36 million this year. By avoiding construction of new women’s and men’s prisons, and avoiding the costs of operating them, South Dakota should save over $100 million in correctional costs this decade.

I knew these reforms would be good for South Dakota’s bottom line. Happily, these reforms are also proving beneficial in other ways.

Most offenders who are released from prison continue to be supervised in the community for a period of time as parolees. Under the new law, parolees can reduce the duration of their parole by 30 days each time they complete 30 days of perfect behavior. Thus far, under this policy, over 700,000 days of parole credit have been earned. That’s almost 2,000 years-worth of parole credit earned to date. This allows parole officers to reduce the time they spend supervising those with good behavior, and focus instead on parolees who need more close supervision.

We’re not only locking fewer people up, we’re seeing a reduction in crime. According to the most recent crime reports from the FBI and the state Attorney General’s Office, South Dakota’s crime rate decreased from 2013 to 2014. Though we can’t definitively attribute the reduction in crime to the Public Safety Improvement Act, it’s certainly a positive sign to celebrate.

I know it’s still too early to declare victory. Experts tell us it will take three to five years to see all the results of our combined efforts. But based on the early data we’ve received, I am hopeful the reforms will save us more money, hold offenders more accountable and make our state a safer place.

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