The Executive Board of the South Dakota Legislature will hear three juicy Issue Memos at next week. The memos aren’t up yet, but the agenda for Monday’s E-Board meeting promises three policy papers from our august Legislative Research Council:
- Wind Energy Development, presented by LRC senior legislative attorney Wenzel Cummings
- Federal Every Student Succeeds Act & How It Differs from NCLB, presented by principal research analysis Clare Charlson
- Comparison of Neighboring State Tax Systems, presented by senior research analyst Amanda Jacobs
Each of these issue memos could prompt oodles of interesting campaign season discussion this fall and legislation this winter. The wind energy discussion could help us understand whether South Dakota is finally on track to catch up with its neighbors in developing one of our most abundant energy resources. The ESSA/NCLB discussion could prompt attentive and principled Republicans to get serious and ask why we keep letting the federal government stick its nose in the intimately local issue of education (hint: the answer is spelled with an $). And the comparison of neighboring state tax systems should provide (you’re on this, right, Ms. Jacobs?) lots of hard fiscal data for candidates and legislators to use as they educate the public about South Dakota’s stringy revenues and stingy public services and what we could do to put our state on a stronger, fairer fiscal footing.
E-Board subcommittees meet at 8 a.m. Monday; they convene en masse at 10 a.m. in Room 413 in the Capitol. They’ve scheduled all three memos for 11:45 a.m. for a mere 30 minutes before their working lunch—let’s hope Senator Greenfield, Speaker Mickelson, and their colleagues spend some time over their Red Rossa take-out chewing over the details of these seemingly important Issue Memos.
I don’t think building more wind energy just because your neighbors are is a good enough reason.
If there is a net benefit to the state (lower electricity bills, more state/property taxes, attractiveness to a variety of industries and companies, reducing the use of coal), that is a better reason.
Will decommissioning, “re-powering” and recycling be included in the costs of any plan? Or are those things off the spreadsheet?
And can it work without subsidies that can end in the future?
Since the council of research for the legislatures takes their marching orders straight from the executive board who picks these goofy memos to be issues, one has to wonder how much Messers. Nelson and Haugaard put their fists and prints on the papers. I bet it is a lot, and I bet all the legislatures who are the bosses get to pre-read and edit the papers. What a waste of taxpayer money.
I look forward to reviewing the LRC’s issue memo with you, Robert, for such data.
There is a wind farm in SD that has passed a particular hurdle recently…basically it moved on to the next level.
http://www.ktiv.com/story/38938879/2018/08/Wednesday/proposed-south-dakota-wind-farm-moves-forward
Dr. McTaggart’s review of such memos issues or approved by the legislatures is exactly why Mr. H’s trumpeting of the citizenry involvement is so important. We need more people like these two fellows who are #4Science and less emotionally involved in politics.
“South Dakota’s stringy revenues”
Did you mean “stingy”, Cory?
They’re only going to spend 30 minutes total on these items!?! This is very important stuff!
Oh yeah. SDGOP does its deliberating and deciding in secret, according to Koch’s wishes, then comes into legislative chambers and formally casts their votes.
South Dakotans ought to vote Democratic and see what it’s like to have an open government democracy in Pierre. I’ll bet they’d like it.
Debbo, I thought about the interplay of those two words, but the “r” was deliberate.
South Dakotans most certainly ought to vote Democratic… but I serve fair warning: they will get lots of open discussion of hard policy. Some South Dakotans might find it boring and wonder why we aren’t talking about guns and gays and God and fetuses all the time. Some South Dakotans might wonder why we aren’t tweeting insults and stoking “reality”-TV subplots all the time. Some South Dakotans might have forgotten what real intelligent government looks like. Elect Democrats, and we’ll remind you.
Shorter slogan: “Elect Democrats: We Retweet Issue Memos.”
I doubt they’d like it, Debbo. Wingnuts still believe a chicken’s comb is fire and will burn them if they get out of line.
You need to drag them slowly into the 19th century so they don’t get the bends, before you can advance them further.
Did these memos get issued yet and can you tell if Mr. Nelson actually wrote a couple of them?