March 2, 2018

UPDATE – Constitutional Amendments Proposed for This Year’s Election

Status Report

As reported in Capitol-ism several weeks ago, the legislature has been considering 15 potential constitutional amendments to be placed on the ballot during this election year.  It takes a majority vote of both the Senate and the House of Representatives for these measures to be put on the ballot.  Once passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate, these measures are not subject to a veto by the Governor.

Of the 15 potential measures 12 have been tabled or deferred to the 41^st legislative day.  Two will be on the ballot:

• Marsy’s law revision
• Super majority vote for constitutional amendments

And one is still in process with a hearing scheduled for Monday:

• Limiting constitutional amendments to one subject

Here is the list of all 15 proposals with updates:

Is South Dakota About to Blow It with Wind Power?

HB 1234 – Representative Gosch (R-Glenham) - to provide for certain requirements prior to construction of wind energy facilities.

This happens regularly during legislative sessions.  A good idea that is designed to address a potential menace gets written up as a bill that really doesn’t work as the sponsor’s intend.

Such is the case with HB 1234 which seeks to protect farmers and ranchers from having wind power developers go broke and leave them with 600 foot wind towers on their property and no way to get rid of them.  Well, there is a way to take them down – and that costs $400 thousand dollars; which is exactly the point of the bill.

Here is the new language HB 1234 will add to South Dakota law:

 Section 3. That chapter 11-2 be amended by adding a NEW SECTION to read:

    A wind energy facility with a combined megawatt capability of the facility's turbines of greater than five and less than one hundred megawatts shall file with the county in which the wind energy facility is located a bond, guarantee, insurance, or other requirement to provide funding for the decommissioning and removal of the wind energy facility, (underline added) and for the restoration and reversion of the land on which the wind energy facility is located to its previous use. The bond required under this section shall run in favor of, and for the benefit of, the landowner whose property is hosting the wind energy facility. The form, terms, and conditions of the bond required under this section shall be subject to the approval of the county in which the wind energy facility is located.

Both proponents and opponents agree that HB 1234 is written vaguely and doesn’t give very specific direction regarding the amount of bond or even what the term “restoration of land . . . to its previous use” means.  This second provision might not be what the landowner wishes when the turbine is removed.

Proponents are comfortable with the lack of specifics out of a strong belief that those decisions should be made at the county level and not dictated by the state.

Opponents have a list of the bill’s shortcomings which include:

• Counties aren’t asking for this; landowner-wind farm hosts aren’t asking for this.
• There are no caps on bonding levels in the bill.
• The PUC currently has rules in place for bonds for decommissioning and needs no further legislation in this regard.
• The agreements between the projects and the farmers have clear language on decommissioning. The farmers are satisfied with the projects or they don’t sign the leases.
• There is no direction as to how to set the bonding levels, where to set them, how to divide the money.
• Wind is not opposed to bonds; wind is opposed to vague bills with no standards, imposing high costs and responsibilities without attainable goals and direction.

Understanding that proponents have indicated that there is no desire to kill off wind development in South Dakota only a desire to protect landowners, the Chamber will encourage the Senate to oppose HB 1234. 

Regardless of intentions, this bill is viewed as damaging to several companies that are operating in South Dakota by manufacturing wind blades, the towers themselves, those intricate trailers used to transport wind blades to the site and even repair the generators. 

These companies employ well over a thousand people in South Dakota.  The Chamber hopes the legislature will not act with disregard for the impact of HB 1234 on these companies and their workers.  One of these companies has already faced closure but received an order that will keep them operating well into this year.

The current protections in law may not be perfect, but they are strong enough to keep the wind energy safe for landowners for several years to come – while other systems can be better designed. 

Chamber’s Bill on Ballot Question Committees Advances

SB 128 – Haverly (R-Rapid City; Kaiser (R-Aberdeen) - revise certain provisions regarding ballot question committees.

This is the Chamber’s bill to allow ballot question committees to function in an ongoing fashion and to support/oppose multiple ballot questions during each election.  This will allow the Chamber to seek funds for ballot measures even before specific threats are filed.

The donations will be reported to the Secretary of State and money given to various ballot campaigns will also be reported by those campaigns.  The bill had its hearing before the House State Affairs Committee last Wednesday morning and was approved by that committee with a vote of 12-Yeas to 0-Nays.  Here are the legislators that voted for SB 128:

SB 128, House State Affairs, Do Pass – 2018

  Yeas 12   Nays 0   Excused 1   Absent 0 

The 2018 South Dakota Chamber of Commerce & Industry Governor’s Giant Vision Competition will be held Thursday, April 12 in Sioux Falls and in conjunction with the Governor’s Office of Economic Development Conference.   An announcement of this year’s finalists for the Giant Vision Business and Student Business Competitions will be made by March 15^th.

Thank you for your support of the South Dakota Chamber of Commerce & Industry.