PIERRE, S.D.(The Dakota Scout)- Two seasoned South Dakota politicos on the opposite sides of the carbon dioxide pipeline debate are joining forces to attempt to find a path forward for an ethanol industry need.
Jason Glodt and Rob Skjonsberg, both of Pierre, announced Nov. 30 the formation of the South Dakota Ag Alliance, a nonprofit organization designed to mediate and advocate for energy-sustainable solutions to difficult agricultural development issues, such as the controversial CO2 pipeline proposal.
“There’s a manner in which we do business in South Dakota. If you try to run over us, you won’t like the response,” Skjonsberg, a long-time advisor to U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, said. “I think that’s what’s happened here.”
The organization intends to mediate a compromise between both pipeline skeptics and proponents, mainly through a series of bills during the 2024 legislative session aimed at making carbon pipeline projects more palatable for landowners.
Among those concessions are land surveying reforms, liability protections for landowners, minimum depth requirements for burying pipelines and recurring payments to landowners who allow the carbon pipeline to pass through their land.
“I’m proud of the way landowners have banded together,” said Skjonsberg, a self-admitted pipeline skeptic. “On the other hand, if we don’t provide certainty for how these projects are going to work, we’ll be fighting these fights for the next 50 years. I think it’d be much wiser to set the tone and create guardrails for landowners and certainty for investors in these types of projects.”
Two separate carbon pipeline companies have faced challenges attempting to get their projects across the finish line. Last month, Navigator CO2 abandoned plans to finish its carbon capture pipeline, which was to run through part of South Dakota.
Summit Carbon Solutions was forced to go back to the drawing board after the state’s Public Utilities Commission urged it to work with vehemently opposed counties.
The company wants to build a 2,000-mile pipeline that would carry emissions from ethanol plants in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Nebraska and Iowa to western North Dakota where it would be sequestered underground.
Glodt, who lobbied for Navigator, said he believes that a majority of people can find a compromise. And the new group’s four-prong proposal makes the end agreement look a lot better for landowners, he believes.
“You’ve got the vast majority of landowners already on board with this,” he said, citing Summit’s claim that it has procured 70% of the agreements it needs via voluntary easements.
Opponents in Brown and surrounding counties question that number, though, as there is strong opposition to the pipeline proposal locally.
But Glodt thinks there’s middle ground to be found.
“Unless South Dakota ethanol plants and South Dakota corn-growers have access to carbon sequestration opportunities, these South Dakota plants will not be able to compete with other states around us and we will be at risk of losing our ethanol industry, which would be devastating for our state’s economy,” he said.
The group will next announce an advocacy committee made up of South Dakota residents involved in farming and ranching who will represent a range of perspectives. That committee will be led by another long-time ag lobbyist, Lorin Pankratz.