Senate passes bill easing permitting for CAFOs, large industrial projects

PIERRE — The Senate has green-lighted Gov. Kristi Noem's proposal to streamline the county permitting process for projects including CAFOs, wind energy projects and large industrial developments.

Senators sparred for nearly an hour over whether Senate Bill 157 takes away local control from the counties before passing it in a 24-11 vote on Friday, as Noem watched from the Senate gallery above. The bill will now go to the House for consideration.

Noem testified on Wednesday that the bill is needed to ensure a fair, standardized process that isn't "hijacked by a vocal few" and to provide more certainty for businesses in the process. On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Kris Langer, R-Dell Rapids, said passing the bill will mean that South Dakota is "truly open for business" by growing the state's economy and that a majority instead of a "fringe few" will decide on conditional use permits for projects.

The bill will lower the vote threshold to a simple majority of members present to approve a conditional use permit and overhaul the permit appeal process. It also requires projects with a special permitted use to be approved without a public hearing if all criteria are met.

More:Noem proposal to ease hurdles for CAFOs, industrial projects sees early win in Senate

Sen. Craig Kennedy, D-Yankton, urged his fellow senators to look past the "marketing" of the bill and look at the bill's text, which makes a "significant change" to how future county planning and zoning is done in South Dakota by requiring a simple majority vote instead of allowing the county to decide whether it wants a supermajority approving project permits.

The bill creates predictability and speed in a permit decision by shrinking who can appeal a county's permit decision to "almost nothing," he said. 

"It basically eliminates any meaningful way of the public to object, of the public to participate, of the public to challenge," he said.

Sen. Lee Schoenbeck, R-Watertown, argued that the bill's only county zoning change is to the vote threshold. Counties can still craft ordinances banning certain types of projects from developing in the county. 

"This bill doesn't tell them one dang thing they can or can't do. That is all local control," he said.

It also narrows who can file an appeal to address situations where property owners are being harassed by project opponents who file appeals against the permits even though they aren't near the projects, he said. 

Sen. Susan Wismer had a failed attempt to amend the bill to require a majority vote of members elect instead of members present. Wismer, D-Britton, argued that requiring only members present could mean a permit vote could be scheduled at a time when elected officials opposing a project can't attend the meeting. It "allows manipulation of the process," she said.

Kennedy explained that the bill's vote requirement of members present means that a permit could be approved by a minority of the commission. If two members are absent and two of the three remaining members approve the permit, it has been approved by a minority, he said. Schoenbeck replied that he never in his four years as a county official saw two officials absent from a vote. 

"County officials are a lot more responsible than that," Schoenbeck said.