DRA Sponsored Legislation

SB 163 – Zoning Legislation

Dakota Rural Action members from Moody and Deuel County met with Legislators from District 4 and 8 in July 2007 to discuss the current law stating that comprehensive land use plans can only be petitioned by collecting signatures from 30% of the landowners in the zoning district. However, there is no definition for landowner, meaning that these petitions cannot be certified as legal. The bill was drafted based on DRA’s recommendations to the legislators.

Senate Bill 163 creates a definition for “landowner”, as anyone whose name can be witnessed on a deed or contract for deed at the County Register of Deed’s office. Originally included was a provision that would also require a petition signer to be registered to vote, but the committee removed that line in the bill.

The bill was passed out of the Senate Local Government Committee by a vote of 7-0, and was later passed by the full Senate in a vote of 34-0. It now continues to the House of Representatives.

Senator Dan Sutton spoke on behalf of the bill in committee and on the Senate Floor. Representative Russell Olson of Madison will carry the bill in the House.

SB 168 – Wind Energy for Schools

This bill came out of Dakota Rural Action’s work to see that wind and renewable energy in South Dakota are locally owned and that we maximize the impact to our local economies. Senator Ryan Maher from District 28 sponsored the bill in the Senate and Rep. Paul Nelson from District 6 sponsored the bill in the House.

Senate Bill 168 did two things…

First, it created an allowance for South Dakota’s schools to own and earn money from small-scale wind projects of up to 3.3 megawatts. Currently schools are not allowed to spend money, or create bonds for projects that would earn a profit.

Secondly, the bill created a loan program, that would be backed by the South Dakota Energy Infrastructure Authority which would use state bonds to fund the loans. This would have given schools access to the money needed for building wind projects. The bill was discussed by the Senate State Affairs Committee, but ultimately killed by a party line vote of 5-3.

Senator Maher stated, “This bill is an avenue to start the process. You have to start somewhere. This is an avenue to start the discussion to get the ball rolling in some direction, versus just doing nothing.”

DRA’s Priority Bills - HB 1296 and SB 178 – Local Investment Incentives

These bills were sponsored by Senator Jim Peterson and Representative Dan Ahlers in their respective houses, and sought to create a 100% refund of all construction excise taxes for any renewable energy developer who could prove that at least 25% of their project cost was from South Dakota investments.

The idea was to create a “front-loaded” tax incentive to encourage out of state companies to develop wind in South Dakota, without giving away the long term benefit of the property taxes that come along with large wind development. Local investment brings with it, not only increase the ability of South Dakotans to earn money from the wind energy being developed in this state, but it also gives South Dakota ownership of the global market for renewable energy. It also increases the control that our citizens have over the industries that are operating in our state.

The Senate bill died in the Senate State Affairs Committee after a short hearing and a party line vote to defeat the bill. The House bill received more attention during the House Taxation Committee hearing, but was ultimately defeated after both the Governor’s office of Economic Development, the Dept of Revenue, and Rep. Joel Dykstra opposed the bill. Dakota Rural Action spoke in favor of both of these bills.