![]() ![]() There seems to be no inclination towards a special session on the part of the senate. ![]() The solution to this problem is going to have to come from where the problem originated: The legislature. ![]() If you look at what state law actually says about eminent domain, PUC fiat seems to be just how that determination has always been made. Now these carbon sequestration projects are on an artificial deadline thanks almost entirely to the Federal Government’s involvement in subsidizing them and the entire basis for declaring carbon capture pipelines to be “common carriers” has a lot of people (including myself) scratching their heads over just how that determination gets made, if not by PUC fiat. People didn’t care so much when there was a perceived public benefit and less risk of massive poisoning (cf. It goes back at least to early-20th century rural electrification. “Shouldn’t securing land rights have come WAY earlier in this process?”Īs I mentioned at the Brown County Commission meeting a couple of weeks ago, eminent domain for the benefit of private companies is nothing new. The only commodity back then, as now, apparently, is politicians who are willing to sell themselves to the highest bidder. You gotta wonder if Rounds has someone getting money from Summit Carbon. Rounds, rather than continue fighting the company, paid them off with taxpayer money. Well, the court cases for SDDS went on and on for about 15 years after the citizens put an end to the garbage company’s plans. For Rounds, it was all about “public relations.” He didn’t care about the people that would be left living near the piles of garbage. Back then Rounds’ sister worked in “public relations” for the company that wanted to use South Dakota as the nation’s waste dump. He was all in favor of burying the South Dakota under New Jersey’s garbage because he believed garbage, rather than being putrescent waste needing regulation, was just something that could be carried dripping toxins and disease across half the country to be disposed of in mega-landfills in South Dakota’s prairie. No, Rounds ain’t ever going to stand up for South Dakotans when a well-funded out-of-state company says it’s going to be carrying a “commodity.” Rounds, of course, was probably the loudest supporter of the “garbage is a commodity” caucus in the SD Legislature in the late 1980s and early 1990s. PR doesn’t win court cases, and Senator Rounds is making the case that his Iowa Republican friends have a greater claim to South Dakota farmland than the South Dakota owners farming that land. I think the courts are going to go that direction, but the safety is totally on the company”. “I think the courts will tell you that there is, through this public pipeline … it is an allowed item to be transported, and they can use a right of way,” Rounds said. ![]() …Rounds was the most recent voice to renew the topic Monday after giving his “message to landowners”: “I think carbon is a commodity.” “That’s going to be decided in the courts where it should be. …”You have some folks that talk about whether or not this should be identified as far as a taking and whether or not you can legally come in and say, ‘I get to put this pipeline on your land,'” Rounds said. Rounds also provided his opinion on the issue of eminent domain, which is the process Summit Carbon could use to acquire land easements from uncooperative landowners against their wishes. PR be darned, Senator Rounds says Summit Carbon Solutions has the legal right to take private property for its profit: “I said that part is now one you have to solve because the public relations on that are not good for you”. “You have really created a black eye for yourself because of the method in which you went after landowners, trying to get them to allow for their property to be accessed,” Rounds said, paraphrasing his comments to the company. …Rounds told the club members he had since spoken with representatives of Summit Carbon “to hear their side of the story.” The South Dakota senator said he brought up the unresolved public relations problem to the company in this conversation. “ had some people in there basically blowing their way through, and that irritated a whole lot of people, and I don’t blame them,” Rounds told Rotarian Tony Nour, during Rotary Club of Downtown Sioux Falls’ weekly meeting on Monday. Senator Rounds only thinks his Iowa Republican friends running Summit made a public relations mistake: But don’t think you have a friend in Washington against the land-grabbers, pipeline opponents. Senator Marion Michael Rounds told the Sioux Falls Rotary Club at lunch yesterday that Summit Carbon Solutions made a bad decision when it plowed through South Dakota farmland to survey its proposed carbon dioxide pipeline route. ![]()
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