Will North Dakota Follow South Dakota's Lead On Eminent Domain Reform?
South Dakota House Bill 1052 is passed out of committee with a 10-3 vote to strip CO2 of the ability to use eminent domain in South Dakota. Similar bills will soon be heard in North Dakota.
As I have written before, the grassroots fight over the Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline has caused a complete shift in the political dynamic in South Dakota.
The South Dakota Searchlight has reported how this issue has reshaped the Republican Party in South Dakota in ways it has not in North Dakota with headlines like these:
New landscape confronts South Dakota Republicans after political earthquake shakes incumbents
A literal 3.7-magnitude earthquake shook the state Capitol in Pierre last week. State Rep. Scott Odenbach, R-Spearfish, said a political earthquake shook the Capitol on Tuesday night.
“The people are waking up,” Odenbach said.
He and others within a faction of the South Dakota Republican Party say it’s being run by politicians who are not as conservative as the party’s base of supporters. Their efforts to change that contributed to 14 losses by incumbent Republican legislators in Tuesday’s primary election. Odenbach’s political action committee spent $58,000 ahead of the primary in support of some winning candidates.
Current Republican House Majority Leader Will Mortenson, R-Fort Pierre — who is unopposed for reelection — said new legislators are always welcome, but losing 14 incumbents comes with a cost.
and Republican primary shakeup continues to play out at state convention
More recently, legislative leadership has shifted to the conservative wing of the party that opposes the CO2 pipeline agenda and using eminent domain for the CO2 pipeline.
Jon Hansen, who publicly debated a representative of one of the CO2 pipeline companies ended up being elected Speaker of the House in South Dakota.
Karla Lems, who has led the charge against the abuses of property rights was named Chairwoman of the House Energy Committee and was elected Speaker Pro Tempore has continued to carry the torch for property rights by introducing HB 1052.
The Dakota Scout is reporting today that the South Dakota House State Affairs Committee has approved that bill by a vote of 10-3.
A lot can change in a year.
That was evident Friday, in the same state Capitol committee room where the 2023 Legislature first approved a bill that gave carbon pipelines companies room to do business in South Dakota. That bill, Senate Bill 201, was referred to voters, who rejected the Legislature’s work.
Fast forward to this year, and a new legislative committee passed what supporters and opponents portrayed as the anti-SB 201 bill by a 10-3 vote.
“The people of this state spoke loud and clear,” said Speaker Pro Tempore Karla Lems, the prime sponsor of House Bill 1052, told members of the House State Affairs Committee. “This is the people’s bill, they asked for it.”
“The people’s bill,” as Lems called it, would strip eminent domain powers from pipelines being used to transport carbon dioxide. And in all likelihood, that would bring an end to Summit Carbon Solutions’ bid to build hundreds of miles of a carbon capture pipeline across eastern South Dakota.
[…]
“This is a simple bill,” Lems said. “Eminent domain is a power that can be easily abused.”
Supporters of Summit’s project said that HB 1052 would likely doom the project in South Dakota. Opponents to Lem’s effort came from faces familiar to the fight — ethanol plants that intend to capture carbon and transport it to underground storage in North Dakota. Both chambers of commerce from Sioux Falls and the state opposed HB 1052, as did Summit.
“Eminent domain pulls people to the table so that we can engage in the type of conversations that result in success,” Brett Koenecke, an attorney for Summit, said. He read from a letter where one landowner was offered nearly $500k to allow the pipeline to cross his land. “I don’t know how we are going to go forward without, perhaps we will find out if that is the case.”
If the South Dakota legislature passes this bill, it could set up a State vs. Federal showdown with the Trump Administration if it chooses to exercise an over-reach of Federal Eminent Domain power as authorized by President Trump this week.
North Dakota Has A Chance To Follow South Dakota’s Lead
North Dakota’s grassroots and legislative momentum has lagged behind South Dakota’s by a country mile. But, North Dakota legislators will have opportunities to fix that with a handful of bill designed to fix North Dakota’s eminent domain laws.
HB 1292 and HB 1414 would end the ability for CO2 pipelines to qualify for common carrier status and utilizing eminent domain. These bills will be heard in the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee at 2:30pm on 1/30/2025.
SB 2322 also ends the ability for CO2 pipelines to qualify for common carrier status and utilizing eminent domain. This bill will be heard in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee at 9:00am 1/30/2025.