Governor Noem plans to unveil agriculture-related legislation at the Black Hills Stock Show on Friday.
The governor wouldn’t say much during her end-of-week press conference in Pierre, but she says the bill will add integrity to ag project development.
“Well the details we’ll release tomorrow, but it really does deal with creating a uniform process across the state for ag development projects and making sure there’s timeframes and integrity to that, and it’s a transparent process from county to county.”
Governor Noem also says the updated riot-boosting bill her office recently introduced addresses issues that led a judge to strike down a previous version last year. The bills are largely a response to anticipated protests of the Keystone XL oil pipeline construction.
Governor Noem says this version adds more clarifying language.
“It strikes out the statute that was declared not appropriate by the court, and then also reclarifies and creates the new crime of incitement to riot that is consistent with what the court’s decisions were. And we’ll make sure that while we’re going forward with this bill, we clearly are protecting people and our property in South Dakota, allowing people the right to protest and have free speech, and do it in a way that’s responsible for all parties.”
Governor Noem says her office took public comment throughout the drafting process, and that many opposing comments were more directly tied to the pipeline than the proposed statute.
The bill, H-B 1117, hasn’t yet been heard in committee.