County Commissioners have the power to protect landowner rights. It requires bravery. And if you think your land is not in danger of private interests using eminent domain to lay claim to it – just wait.
These were the messages shared by panelists to a packed convention hall during the Landowner Rights panel discussion held in Huron during the South Dakota Farmers Union State Convention November 30.
“Ultimately, this all comes down to you on the ground. And it comes down to courage,” said Brian Jorde, Managing Lawyer, Domina Law Group. “Last session legislators did not have courage. For those of you who have not been active on this. We need you because you are next. If slow but steady erosion of property rights is not confronted, you will be next.”
South Dakota Farm Bureau has new policy clarifying their stance on carbon pipelines and private property rights.
At the annual convention in mid-November, President Scott VanderWal says member delegates decided “if a pipeline or proposed pipeline has two-thirds of landowners along the line who have voluntarily signed easements, the company should be able to use eminent domain on the rest.”
VanderWal says in the last year, Farm Bureau members decided land for carbon pipeline projects was too easy to attain via eminent domain and the new policy should address the concern.
Summit Carbon Solutions is working on a carbon pipeline project that would span multiple states and move through eastern South Dakota to transport carbon from ethanol plants to underground storage in North Dakota. If the project is completed, it could lower carbon emissions for ethanol and help grow a top market for U.S. corn. But proposed pipeline projects have landowners in multiple states citing eminent domain concerns.
For 40 years, I’ve stood among the leadership of the environmental movement crafting sensible, market-based solutions for reducing our deadly addiction to oil and coal. I believe that the human-induced greenhouse effect is an existential threat to civilization, but I do not insist that other people ascribe to my belief.
Even Americans who don’t accept carbon-induced climate change should worry that our nation’s dependence on coal and oil has other obvious and unignorable costs—including poisoning our fisheries with mercury, sterilizing our lakes and streams, and denuding our forests with acid rain, as well as the mass-scale strip mining that is leveling parts of the Appalachian mountains and the petroleum addiction that keeps us embroiled in endless oil wars.
Furthermore, the public finances this destruction with trillions in annual subsidies that allow coal, oil, and gas companies to maintain their competitive edge against what by some measures could be cheaper, cleaner, and more efficient fuels. In 2022, the carbon industry globally collected a staggering $7 trillion in direct and indirect public subsidies.
Nov 23 – Carbon capture and underground storage (CCUS) is touted by proponents of fossil fuel production and consumption as the technology that will keep oil and gas in the global energy mix.
It is, and at the same time it isn’t.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) delivered a dose of reality on whether CCUS can be deployed at sufficient scale and with viable economics in its latest report, released on Thursday.
While the global oil and gas industry is well placed to scale up technologies to help achieve the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, the IEA warns of pitfalls.
One of those is what the agency, which represents developed nations, called “excessive expectations and reliance on CCUS”.
It called CCUS an “essential technology for achieving net-zero emissions in certain sectors and circumstances, but it is not a way to retain the status quo”.
The key word in the above quote is ‘certain’, meaning that CCUS is a viable technology to reduce emissions in some cases, but it is far from the silver bullet it is often made out to be, largely by major oil and gas producers and their supporters.
The IEA produced some sobering numbers in its report, The Oil and Gas Industry in Net Zero Transitions.
If oil and natural gas consumption does evolve as projected under current policy settings, the IEA said this will require an “inconceivable” 32 billion metric tons of CCUS by 2050.
The South Dakota legislature is a self-governing body by design, and South Dakotans expect their elected senators and representatives to govern in accordance with South Dakota coded law and prescribed decorum and civic decency. The state senate and house of representatives each have an ethics committee to address any violations of the joint rules that govern the official conduct and behavior of all legislators. Two key rules that pertain are Joint Rules 1B-1 and 1B-3:
The people of South Dakota require that their legislators maintain the highest of moral and ethical standards as such standards are essential to assure the trust, respect and confidence of our citizens. Legislators have a solemn responsibility to avoid improper behavior and refrain from conduct that is unbecoming to the Legislature or that is inconsistent with the Legislature’s ability to maintain the respect and trust of the people it serves. While it is not possible to write rules to cover every circumstance, each legislator must do everything in his or her power to deal honorably with the public and with his or her colleagues and must promote an atmosphere in which ethical behavior is readily recognized as a priority and is practiced continually, without fail.
The South Dakota Legislature will strengthen and sustain an atmosphere of professional conduct and civility among its members and with all staff and will not tolerate harassment or offensive behavior based on race, color, religion, national origin, gender, age, or disability. Harassing or offensive behavior may include the use of electronic communications through social media or otherwise, whether actual or attempted. Legislators must refrain from any and all such harassment or offensive conduct. This prohibition against harassment also encompasses sexual harassment including unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal, non-verbal, or physical conduct of a sexually harassing nature, when: (1) submission to the harassment is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of employment or other employment determinations, or (2) the harassment has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/RQC7HD43RZII5LX7N5DN3WPRIE.jpg "Carbon capture and storage hopes are pipe dreams, for now")