Westerman, Johnson, Noem Discuss Natural Resources Issues in South Dakota

WASHINGTON – Today, House Committee on Natural Resources Ranking Member Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) joined U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) and Gov. Kristi Noem to learn about the natural resources issues facing South Dakota.

“I want to thank Congressman Johnson for inviting me to South Dakota and Governor Noem for joining us to meet with the Forest Service and discuss solutions to improve vital sawmill infrastructure around the Black Hills National Forest,” Westerman said. “This is critical to maintain the forest’s health and resiliency to fires, disease and insects like the Mountain Pine Beetle. Congressman Johnson and I also spoke with employees of Mount Rushmore Forest Products, a mill that is set to close due to steep reductions in timber supplies from the Black Hills National Forest. These workers will lose their jobs, paychecks and ability to provide for their families. Our visits with these mill employees and several South Dakota ranchers were powerful reminders of how federal policies are life changing for rural communities. I look forward to taking what we learned back to Congress to craft thoughtful, innovative legislation and fight for rural Americans across the country.”

“This morning Ranking Member Westerman and I sat down with two timber professionals who’ve lost their jobs because of the mill closure,” Johnson said. “They are husbands, fathers and people who care about their community. It was among the most powerful experiences I’ve had in Congress. These men want to protect the other timber jobs in the Black Hills and they want to be good stewards of our incredible forest. I’m thankful for the time we had with them, mill owner Jim Neiman and leaders at the US Forest Service to brainstorm new approaches to keeping timber harvest levels at a level that will serve both the forest and the timber industry.”

Background

Westerman and Johnson began their visit last night by hosting a dinner with South Dakota ranchers, learning more about grazing and ranching issues on both public and private lands in the region.

Westerman and Johnson continued their visit with a tour of Mount Rushmore Forest products in Hill City, S.D., a family-owned lumber mill that is closing soon due to the U.S. Forest Service’s decision to scale back logging in the Black Hills. They wrapped up the day by meeting with Noem and the new Forest Supervisor for the Black Hills National Forest.

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Former Independent/Constitution Party Member/Republican Lora Hubbel is back at it again and posted this video to social media yesterday, claiming she’s going to be running for Governor.

I notice she’s noncommittal about what party, but by gosh, she’s running.

(We’ll see if she can raise more than $100 this time.)

And whether she can get on the ballot, unlike the last time she tried. Getting on the ballot usually helps.

As promised, after the House of Representatives spent their time pontificating, and failed to fix House Bill 1217, Governor Kristi Noem stepped in, and has issued 2 executive orders to ensure that women’s sports are going to be protected in South Dakota:

2021-05 by Pat Powers on Scribd

2021-06 by Pat Powers on Scribd

From Facebook:

Well, that House vote is now moot:

The Senate has adjourned, making what's happening in the House moot. HB 1217 is dead.

— Joe Sneve (@Argus_Joe) March 29, 2021

South Dakota Leading the Nation in GDP Growth

PIERRE, S.D. – South Dakota’s economy is growing faster than any state in the nation, according to last Friday’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) release from the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). South Dakota grew at an annual rate of 9.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020, more than double the national growth rate of 4.3 percent. Texas had the second highest growth rate at 7.5 percent.

“South Dakota is open for business,” said Governor Kristi Noem. “Because of the unique approach that we took to the virus, we’ve set our economy up for tremendous growth, both in the short-term and long into the future. Our real estate market is booming as families and businesses look to move to a state that preserves our way of life and respects freedom and personal responsibility.”

Click here to read the full BEA report.

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This morning, the House of Representatives rejected the Governor’s Style and form changes to the measure on a 67-2 vote, with only Rep’s Tidemann and Anderson joining the Governor’s position on the vote.

The question remaining is now, is where does the legislature go from here?

The Governor has been pretty clear about what she believes, which seems to indicate little interest in being any outside group’s legislative guinea pig for testing out legislation and the resulting boycotts and lawsuits.  And as far as her style and form rescissions, she took a pretty hard swipe at the parts that expanded government.

And she apparently underlined that position with an official full veto after it went back to her.

Gov. Noem has sent HB1217 back to the House as a vetoed bill.

— Joe Sneve (@Argus_Joe) March 29, 2021

So, now the ball is back in the House’s court.

Stand by.

From KELOLAND news comes a report that the Speaker of the House is at loggerheads with Governor Noem on her recommended style and form changes to HB 1217, and will be telling the House to reject them:

Noem’s changes aim to drop college athletes from those potentially impacted by the bill. She also seeks to drop a requirement that a student’s biological sex is verified every school year.

In a statement, Gosch said “I will be recommending that the House of Representatives rejects Governor Noem’s proposal as unconstitutional.”

Read it all here.

.@SenJohnThune surveying the southern border yesterday from the Rio Grande River in Texas. pic.twitter.com/EjoSZQz0za

— Ryan Wrasse (@RWrasse) March 27, 2021

It’s Time to Expose Big Tech Bias
By Sen. John Thune

This Congress, I have the privilege to serve as the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband. Among many other important issues, this assignment allows me to continue my work to hold social media platforms accountable, particularly in the news and information space. Consumers have become increasingly troubled about the way their information is used by social media platforms, and how these sites decide what news and information we see. And there are increasing numbers of anecdotes to suggest that some social media platforms are moderating content in a biased or political way.

Currently, content moderation on social media platforms is governed by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which was enacted into law 25 years ago, long before the advent of social media. Section 230 provides internet sites that host user-generated content – sites like YouTube or Twitter or Facebook – with immunity for the content users post on their sites. For example, if somebody posts a video on YouTube that contains illegal content, YouTube isn’t held legally responsible for that content.

Today, federal law does not require that social media sites be at all accountable to consumers for those content moderation decisions. That’s why I introduced the bipartisan Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency Act, or the PACT Act.  My bill would preserve the benefits of Section 230 – like the internet growth and widespread dissemination of free speech it has enabled – while increasing accountability and consumer transparency around content moderation.

Content moderation is certainly not all bad. The problem is that content moderation has been – and largely continues to be – a black box, with consumers having little or no idea how the information they see has been shaped by the sites they’re visiting.

The PACT Act would address this problem by increasing transparency around the content moderation process. Until relatively recently, sites like Facebook and Twitter would remove a user’s post without explanation and without an appeals process. And even as platforms start to shape up their act with regard to transparency and due process, it’s still hard for users to get good information about how content is moderated.

Under the PACT Act, if a site chooses to remove your post, it has to tell you why it made that decision, and it must explain how your post violated the site’s terms of use. The PACT Act would also require sites to have an appeals process – so if Facebook, for example, removes one of your posts, it would not only have to tell you why, but it would have to provide a way for you to appeal that decision.

We’ve seen increased concern lately about news articles being removed from social media sites. Under the PACT Act, a newspaper whose article was posted on Facebook or Twitter and then removed by one of those platforms could challenge Facebook or Twitter, which would have to provide a reason for removing the article and allow the newspaper to appeal the decision.

My legislation would also help us develop the data necessary to demonstrate whether social media platforms are removing content in a biased or political fashion. The PACT Act requires detailed transparency reports every six months from large social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, which will help to provide the data needed to determine whether and where biased moderation exists.

My bill is a serious, bipartisan approach to the issue of Section 230 reform. It would go a long way toward making social media platforms more accountable to consumers and increasing transparency around the content moderation process.

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