Senate Smokes Grass Plan for Rest Stops

Hopefully we can stay out of the weeds on this one.

—Rep. Dan Ahlers, opening debate on SB 154, 2017.03.01

I don’t think it was Representative Ahlers’s clever wordplay that killed Senate Bill 154, Senator Jason Frerichs’s proposal to direct the Department of Transportation to plant native flora at our Interstate highway rest areas. It was perhaps the fact that SB 154 required a little basic scientific knowledge.

In House debate (beginning timestamp 2:17:50), Rep. Ahlers cited the Governor’s initiative to restore Hilger’s Gulch in Pierre to native plants like buffalo grass, blue grama, needlegrass, and little bluestem. Rep. Tim Rounds responded that his fellow Pierrians don’t like “the weeds—I mean, the natural grasses” in Hilger’s Gulch. Rounds argued that the weeds (he repeated that mischaracterization thrice) at rest stops would turn off tourists. He also suggested that SB 154 would promote rattlesnakes.

Rep. Oren Lesmeister sought to clarify Rep. Rounds’s misconception and said native grass is green just like the golf-course grass Rep. Rounds apparently prefers. Rancher Lesmeister turned Rounds’s insults on its head, saying bluegrass and other imported species escape from artificial plantings and foul pasture land. “I’m proud of our native grasses—our ‘weeds’—and I hope you vote green.”

Rep. Drew Dennert joined Lesmeister with his agricultural perspective, saying native big bluestem, Indian grass, and switchgrass are “far more attractive” and non-native species.

Rep. Taffy Howard portrayed the grass choice at rest areas as beneath the need for Legislative attention and said the highly paid Secretary of Transportation or an undersecretary should handle it.

Rep. Ahlers closed debate by rebutting Rep. Rounds’s weed whacking. “We’re talking about plum trees, prairie roses, blue asters, and wildflowers.” He noted that he and his son visited the Laura Ingalls Wilder site at Walnut Grove, Minnesota, and enjoyed its lovely 25 acres of natural grassland.

All those botanical terms must have set off our Republican caucus’s scientific-fact alarm. Or maybe they were just all grassed out from their Monday passage of SB 66, the Governor’s revised riparian buffer strip bill. 36 of the 55 Republicans on the floor (five Republicans were out) voted against pride in South Dakota biota. Nineteen Republicans joined nine Democrats (Soli was out, too) in supporting the bill, but that wasn’t enough.

Of course, as Rep. Howard pointed out, nothing is stopping the Secretary of Transportation Bergquist from taking a cue from the Governor and planting some cost-saving native species at our rest stops and other state properties. So hey, Secretary Bergquist! How about ordering some bluestem and prairie roses?