South Dakota
Referred Law 21: A landowner bill of rights or an undermining of local control • South Dakota Searchlight
The measure on South Dakota’s Nov. 5 ballot that addresses carbon dioxide pipelines is either a bill of rights for landowners or a seizure of authority from local governments, depending on the person describing it.
During the last legislative session in Pierre, state lawmakers passed and Republican Gov. Kristi Noem signed Senate Bill 201. Opponents gathered more than 31,000 petition signatures to refer the law to voters. On the ballot, it’s Referred Law 21. A yes vote supports the law passed by legislators and Noem, while a no vote opposes the law.
The law would implement a list of protections and incentives for landowners and counties impacted by the construction of carbon dioxide pipelines. That’s the “bill of rights” part, according to the law’s supporters.
But it would also require local governments to demonstrate to state regulators that their restrictions on pipeline locations are reasonable, rather than the pipeline company having to prove those regulations are unreasonable. That’s the seizure of local authority, according to the law’s opponents.
The path to the ballot
The genesis of the debate over carbon pipelines is a proposal from Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions. It has partnered with ethanol producers, including Sioux Falls-based Poet, to capture some of the CO2 emitted by 57 ethanol plants in several midwestern states — including eastern South Dakota — and send it via pipeline for underground storage in North Dakota. The project would capitalize on federal tax credits that incentivize the prevention of climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
Some landowners along the pipeline route oppose the project because they don’t want the pipeline under their land. They oppose Summit’s attempted use of eminent domain to gain court-ordered access to their land and are concerned about potentially deadly leaks of carbon dioxide plumes. Similar debates are occurring in other states on the proposed route. Iowa has granted the project a permit, but it’s contingent on approval in the Dakotas, where Summit has not yet obtained permits.
Legislative sponsors of what became Referred Law 21 described it as a compromise between pipeline opponents and supporters, guaranteeing protections and incentives for landowners while maintaining a regulatory path for pipelines. The compromise effort arose after some legislators failed in their efforts to ban eminent domain for carbon pipelines. Referred Law 21 does not address eminent domain.
Another factor in the debate over the legislation was the role of counties. Some county commissions, prodded by pipeline opponents, have passed local ordinances with strict restrictions on the locations of pipelines.
Under existing law, those local ordinances apply unless the state Public Utilities Commission decides to declare them unreasonably restrictive. If Referred Law 21 takes effect, the burden would flip. Counties would have to prove to the state commission that their ordinances are reasonable.
The proposed law says that once the state issues a permit for a transmission project such as a pipeline, it automatically overrides any local rules. Local regulations would no longer be applicable unless state regulators require compliance with local laws as part of the permit.
Some proponents of Referred Law 21 say current state law makes it too easy for a local body opposed to a multi-state pipeline project to hold up construction. They say if local officials are confident their regulations are reasonable, they can rest easy knowing state regulators will uphold them.
“There is no wording in Senate Bill 201, now Referred Law 21, that diminishes the counties’ rights in any way,” said Walt Bones, a proponent of the law, during a September debate in Mitchell. Bones is a former secretary of the state Department of Agriculture.
Opponents are not buying it.
“Senate Bill 201, now Referred Law 21, takes away the voice of those local governments,” argued Jim Eschenbaum, an opponent of the law. Eschenbaum is a Hand County commissioner.
Landowner bill of rights
The law includes landowner protections, coined the “Landowner Bill of Rights” by backers in the Legislature.
They include requiring carbon pipeline companies, rather than landowners or local governments, to be liable for any damages caused by pipelines. The pipelines would also have to be buried at least 4 feet deep, and companies would have to share their pipeline rupture modeling data.
Counties could also collect a surcharge of up to $1 per linear foot of CO2 pipeline, with at least half of the money going toward property tax relief for affected landowners. The remaining funds could be used at the county’s discretion.
Plus, local governments could require transmission projects such as pipelines to enter road usage agreements to help pay for the maintenance and repair of roads damaged during construction activity.
“This is all about landowner rights, and getting some funding source back to counties,” Bones said. “That’s all this is. It’s not a referendum on a pipeline. It’s nothing more than this list of landowner rights and protections, and a funding source.”
Opponents say many of the protections and incentives in the bill are already part of county and landowner negotiations with Summit.
“They call it the ‘Landowner Bill of Rights.’ It is Summit’s bill of rights,” said Eschenbaum during a recent rally in rural Canton. “They said they’d do all that stuff before drafting the bill even started.”
Eschenbaum added during his September debate with Bones that “the Legislature has no business negotiating terms on peoples’ private property.”
Proponents counter that landowners could still negotiate the location of the pipeline, how much they will be paid, and additional easement terms.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.
RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) – More road work and travel impacts are set to begin across western South Dakota this week, with projects ranging from highway striping and crack sealing to temporary rest area closures as well as an upcoming public meeting on a bridge replacement project in Keystone.
The first projects begin Monday, May 11.
S.D. Highway 44: Striping work
On S.D. Highway 44, crews will complete striping work from about 1.5 miles east of Farmingdale to roughly 10.75 miles east of the community.
Work is scheduled from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday and is expected to continue through Tuesday evening. Drivers should expect daytime lane impacts in the area.
U.S. Highway 385: Striping work
Also beginning Monday, striping operations are scheduled on U.S. Highway 385 from about one mile south of the U.S. Highway 85 junction near Deadwood to the junction itself. Work is expected to take place during daytime hours Monday through Tuesday.
Pavement preservation project on S.D. Highway 20
A pavement preservation project is also scheduled to start Monday on S.D. Highway 20 between Buffalo and Camp Crook. Crews will be sealing cracks in the roadway as part of the project. Traffic will be reduced to one lane during daytime hours, with flaggers and a pilot car guiding motorists through the work zone. Delays of up to 15 minutes are expected.
The contractor for the $112,155 project is Highway Improvement, Inc. of Sioux Falls. The overall completion date is scheduled for Dec. 4.
Drivers are reminded to slow down and use caution around crews and construction equipment in all work zones.
Wasta rest area spring cleaning
Additional travel impacts are expected latter this week with temporary closures planned at the Wasta Rest Areas along Interstate 90 for annual spring cleaning.
The eastbound Wasta Rest Area near mile marker 98 will close at 7 a.m. Tuesday, May 12, and reopen at 9 a.m. Wednesday, May 13. After that reopening, the westbound rest area will close from 9 a.m. Wednesday until 9 a.m. Thursday, May 14. Travelers are encouraged to make alternate plans during the closures.
Public meeting on future bridge replacement project along U.S. Highway 16A in Keystone
On Thursday, May 14, the South Dakota Department of Transportation and Complete Concrete, Inc. will host a public informational meeting on a future bridge replacement project along U.S. Highway 16A in Keystone.
The open house-style meeting will run from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Keystone Community Center, 1101 Madill St. Officials say the meeting is intended to provide project details and answer questions from residents, businesses and emergency personnel.
The bridge replacement project is scheduled to begin in October. Plans call for replacing the existing bridge with a box culvert and include additional improvements such as intersection upgrades, resurfacing, pavement markings, traffic signals, ADA upgrades and erosion control. Pedestrian access on both sides of the structure will also be improved.
More information on the Keystone project is available at South Dakota Department of Transportation’s project page.
Current road conditions, closures and construction updates can be found at SD511 or by dialing 511.
See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it.
Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here with a brief description.
Copyright 2026 KOTA. All rights reserved.
The South Dakota Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at May 10, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from May 10 drawing
01-03-20-35-46, Bonus: 05
Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your prize
- Prizes of $100 or less: Can be claimed at any South Dakota Lottery retailer.
- Prizes of $101 or more: Must be claimed from the Lottery. By mail, send a claim form and a signed winning ticket to the Lottery at 711 E. Wells Avenue, Pierre, SD 57501.
- Any jackpot-winning ticket for Dakota Cash or Lotto America, top prize-winning ticket for Lucky for Life, or for the second prizes for Powerball and Mega Millions must be presented in person at a Lottery office. A jackpot-winning Powerball or Mega Millions ticket must be presented in person at the Lottery office in Pierre.
When are the South Dakota Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 9:59 p.m. CT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 10 p.m. CT on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky for Life: 9:38 p.m. CT daily.
- Lotto America: 9:15 p.m. CT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Dakota Cash: 9 p.m. CT on Wednesday and Saturday.
- Millionaire for Life: 10:15 p.m. CT daily.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a South Dakota editor. You can send feedback using this form.
South Dakota
After Standing Rock, could a canceled mine project offer a roadmap for opponents of a new oil pipeline in South Dakota?
Almost exactly a decade since the start of the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access pipeline gained national and international attention, new disputes are simmering over tribal rights in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Earlier this month, an environmental organization and a Native American advocacy group sued the US Forest Service, claiming that an exploratory graphite drilling project on national forest land threatened a recognized ceremonial site on mountain meadows known as Pe’ Sla, or Reynolds Prairie.
But on Friday, Pete Lien and Sons, the company behind the project, abruptly withdrew, saying it would perform reclamation on the site and would not seek to file another plan. The decision came as a striking victory for Native American tribes and environmental groups that had opposed it – but other projects in the works may not meet the same conclusion.
The project, claimed nine groups within the Sioux Nation, including the Standing Rock Sioux, would “directly and significantly” affect the use of Pe’ Sla, which sits within Ȟe Sápa, the Lakota name for the sacred Black Hills of South Dakota, itself the locus of Lakota creation myths.
A second exploratory project by a Canadian company looking to mine uranium on state-owned land could affect Craven Canyon, an area that contains 7,000-year-old sites of importance to Indigenous tribes, historians and archaeologists.
Opposition to the twin projects – backed by Pete Lien, of Rapid City, and by Clean Nuclear Energy Corp – comes as a proposed Alberta-to-Wyoming pipeline for carrying Canadian crude oil to the US is close to securing commitments from oil companies after Donald Trump granted permitting through an executive order.
All the projects have at their heart issues of extraction, water safety and sacred sites, much as the Standing Rock dispute of 2016 that saw “water protesters” gather in a standoff with law enforcement over concerns regarding water safety and sacred sites.
That case began when the Standing Rock Sioux passed a resolution stating that “the Dakota Access Pipeline poses a serious risk to the very survival of our Tribe and … would destroy valuable cultural resources” and was a violation of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty guaranteeing the “undisturbed use and occupation” of reservation lands surrounding the pipeline.
In the aftermath, the environmental group Greenpeace was ordered to pay damages of $345m by a North Dakota judge to pipeline company Energy Transfer and subsidiary Dakota Access in connection with the protests, an order that is set to go to appeal. Greenpeace claims the legal action is designed to silence activists.
Most of the current disputes relate to energy, reflecting the Trump administration’s drive toward US energy independence and away from dependence on foreign sources, particularly China. Graphite, used in electric vehicle batteries, is almost exclusively imported. Roughly 95%–99% of uranium is purchased from foreign sources, including Russia and Kazakhstan.
The pipeline deal, meanwhile, is expected to help increase oil output from Canada, the world’s fourth-largest producer, to around 6.1m barrels a day, up from 5.5m now. Bridger, the company behind the Alberta-to-Wyoming pipeline, has said the project was being developed in response to identified market interest.
Wizipan “Little Elk” Garriott, a member of NDN Collective, an Indigenous rights group opposing the mining at Pe’ Sla, says the entire process of approval for the planned mine “happened in the dark”.
“There was no notice that they were proceeding provided to us, nor to the sovereign tribal nations,” he says, in violation of environmental and cultural impact study requirements and consultations with the tribes.
Lilias Jarding, director of the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, one of the parties in the victorious Pe’ Sla action, says the decade since Standing Rock has seen a huge growth in projects attempting to mine tribal lands and areas of ceremonial significance.
Since the start of the second Trump administration, the push for both minerals extraction and energy has dramatically increased. “They’re being more aggressive,” Jarding says. In the case of Pe’ Sla, he adds, the company didn’t stop drilling when the lawsuits was filed: “They started drilling 24 hours a day.”
The alliance, along with tribes, claim the graphite project violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and that the US Forest Service improperly used a process known as a “categorical exclusion” to bypass reviews.
Oglala Sioux president Frank Star Comes Out said in a statement that the Sioux tribes never ceded to the US the lands in the Black Hills, which, he said, “remain the spiritual center of the Great Sioux Nation and they are not for sale, lease or exploitation” and that the lawsuit is a “united tribal response to protect a sacred site from those who continue to desecrate our ancestral lands”.
Oglala activist Taylor Gunhammer said that drilling at Pe’ Sla was akin to “drilling under the Vatican or at a sacred site in Jerusalem”.
A representative of Clean Nuclear Energy Corp, Mike Blady, said the company was “aware of the cultural significance and are doing everything in our power to ensure that there is no collateral damage”.
Will this amount to a populist action similar to Standing Rock?
The Pe’ Sla dispute did not provoke the kind of Indigenous-led, grassroots resistance to fossil-fuel infrastructure projects that accompanied the Dakota Access pipeline, which in some ways became a template for contemporary protests, powered by social media, celebrities and politicians.
The tribes were not in favor of following in that direction, Jarding says: “It’s a deeply sacred spiritual and ceremonial site, and elders have made it clear that it’s not a good place for another Standing Rock with thousands of people. They say this is not the place.”
Under the Biden administration, the tribal groups felt they were entering into a period of co-management policy over federal lands that in many cases lie within treaty agreements. But under the Trump administration, that sense of co-operation has diminished.
“We’ve seen a ramp-up of opening up federal lands for mineral and gas exploration, but as a planet we need to be moving away from fossil fuels and toward policies that are sustainable into the future,” says NDN’s Garriott.
What was planned for Pe’ Sla now, or was happening at Standing Rock a decade ago, or has indeed happened over a long history of disputes between sovereign tribal groups and the US government, he says, is “protecting our land and protecting our water, not only for ourselves but for the planet. We’re not random protesters out there – we’re protecting our own land”.
-
New York1 hour agoAirbnb Turns to Black Leaders in Its Bid to Make a Comeback in New York
-
Detroit, MI2 hours agoMetro Detroit braces for Frost Advisory, Freeze Warning overnight before rain arrives
-
San Francisco, CA2 hours ago50 Beagles Rescued From Wisconsin Lab Arrive in Bay Area, SF Activist Faces Felony Charges
-
Dallas, TX2 hours ago
Former Cowboys QB Craig Morton passes away at age 83
-
Miami, FL2 hours agoBrickell Avenue Bridge openings spark rush hour gridlock concerns in downtown Miami
-
Boston, MA2 hours agoWhat we know about accused Memorial Drive gunman Tyler Brown
-
Denver, CO2 hours agoBroncos Ring of Famer Craig Morton, who led Denver to first Super Bowl, dies at 83
-
Seattle, WA2 hours agoVictim identified in deadly Seattle beer garden shooting on Lake City Way; suspect sought
