REFERRED LAW 21
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How do you plan to vote (or if you’re not in SD, how would you vote) on Referred Law 21- a law that provides statutory requirements for regulating carbon dioxide pipelines and other transmission facilities, and allows counties to impose a surcharge on certain pipeline companies?
A vote "YES" would allow the Act of the Legislature to become Law
A vote "NO" would reject the Act of the Legislature
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EXPLANATION:
A group called the South Dakota Property Rights and Local Control Alliance gathered enough valid signatures to place Referred Law 21 on the ballot.
That means voters can choose to keep or kill Senate Bill 201, passed during the 2024 session as part of a legislative package known as the “Landowner Bill of Rights" to address potential carbon pipeline negotiations.
Summit Carbon Solutions is seeking regulatory approval for a $5.5 billion, 2,500-mile pipeline that would carry liquified carbon dioxide gas from more than 50 ethanol plants in South Dakota and four other states to be stored deep underground in North Dakota.
The pipeline would address federal environmental standards for tax credits and is seen as crucial for a potential aviation fuel market for the Midwest-based ethanol industry, which buys roughly one-third of the nation's corn crop.
Sponsors of Referred Law 21 trumpeted a series of landowner protections for potential negotiations between Summit Carbon Solutions and landowners. The law mandated payments from pipeline companies at the county level per linear foot. It also codified minimum depth requirements, liability on pipeline operators for damages and disclosures of pipelines’ plume models, which analyze how carbon dioxide might spread in case of a rupture.
Opponents said the legislation paved the way for Public Utilities Commission approval of the pipeline by usurping the regulatory authority of counties.
Jim Eschenbaum, who chairs the property rights group, contends that Referred Law 21 provides a basis for land to be accessed involuntarily through eminent domain, though the law does not address that issue.
Eminent domain involves taking private property for public use while requiring just compensation.
Eschenbaum's reasoning is that terms set forth in the law between pipeline companies and landowners make it easier for the three-member PUC as a state entity to supersede county zoning ordinances and setbacks, or for a judge to conclude that such action is within PUC authority.
Republican House Majority Leader Will Mortenson disputes that assertion and points out that eminent domain is not directly addressed in the legislation.
"If this pipeline comes, I understand that it would be good for ethanol, but that’s not enough," said Mortenson. "We need to make sure this is a good thing for every single farmer from the beginning of the route to the end of the route. And that's what Referred Law 21 does."