Several days ago, North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley warned he might sue South Dakota for banning the use of eminent domain to build carbon oxide pipelines. I advised A.G. Wrigley that he didn’t have a legal leg to stand on.
A.G. Wrigley has come to the same conclusion:
“Our conclusion has been that there is not, at this time, a legal avenue available to us,” Wrigley told the North Dakota Monitor on Monday [Jeff Beach, “North Dakota Attorney General Says Legal Action Against South Dakota Pipeline Law Not an Option,” North Dakota Monitor, 2025.09.29].
Wrigley doesn’t detail the results of his legal research or thank Dakota Free Press for helping crystallize the lack of merits of any eminent domain or Commerce Clause claim he might have offered in futile court challenge. But he tries to erase any electorally poisonous suggestion that he’d want to override landowner rights for the sake of corporate pipeliner profit:
Wrigley on Monday also highlighted North Dakota’s role in siding with property owners on an eminent domain case with the U.S. Supreme Court. North Dakota and South Dakota were among 12 Republican-led states that earlier this month filed a friend-of-the-court brief taking the side of landowners as they seek to be reimbursed for legal fees after winning a court battle with an energy company.
“There’s a lot of interest in pipelines and transmission lines, things that impact private property rights,” Wrigley said. “I am a strong private property rights advocate” [Beach, 2025.09.29].
Wrigley has yet to announce whether he’s seeking reëlection in 2026. But if he does, he’s striking the right note with the latter comments about property rights, not the former threat to sue a state like South Dakota that protects property rights from private corporations.
Wyoming dumps tons of mercury and other heavy metal oxides every year on South Dakota from coal burning power plants and researchers at the South Dakota School of Mines know most of the toxins in the state’s lakes have precipitated from emissions released by plants in North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. And, if South Dakota had a Democratic attorney general she’d sue those states for the poisoned legacy created by Colstrip, Basin Electric and Black Hills Energy. One of the most polluted reaches of the Belle Fourche River goes right through current Republican Attorney General Marty Jackley’s boyhood ranch.
So pick your poison, Republicans.
Think deeper, Mr. Wrigley. Of course there’s a way around this energy dilemma.
I’ll tell you for $50,000.