IT’S TRAVEL TIME AGAIN…

SOUTH DAKOTA – The unofficial kick-off to the summer travel season is fast approaching.

“Triple-A is projecting a little more than 157,000 South Dakotans will travel 50 miles or more from their home this holiday weekend,” stated Shawn Steward of Triple-A South Dakota. “That’s about 17% of the state population.”

He says that’s up 2.8 percent over last year’s Memorial Day holiday period. “About 86% of people will be driving to their destinations, which is common for what we see,” Steward said. “So that’s about 135,000 South Dakotans.”

Steward recommends making sure your vehicle is ready for the road ahead, especially tires. “Make sure they have good tread and are properly aired-up.”

And use extra caution when travelling through construction zones.

 

ATTORNEY GENERAL MARTY JACKLEY VISITS SOUTHERN BORDER, AUTHORIZES DCI TO WORK WITH ICE

ARIZONA – Attorney General Marty Jackley and 11 other Attorneys General Wednesday received a first-hand look at the southern border in Arizona, and Attorney General Jackley pledged his office’s help in dealing with those issues.

“We applaud and support President Trump, U.S. Attorney General Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Noem, Border Czar Homan, and the men and women serving here on the border for their efforts to better protect all of us,” said Attorney General Jackley. “I have also authorized the State Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) to obtain 287(g) program authority to help enforce federal immigration law in South Dakota with emphasis on violent criminals, and drug dealers. As Attorney General, I will ensure that my office does its part in facing this problem.’

The 287(g) program, authorized by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, allows state and local law enforcement agencies to enter agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to perform specific immigration enforcement duties under ICE supervision. These agreements grant local officers the authority to identify, process, and detain individuals for immigration violations they encounter during their regular law enforcement activities.

Attorney General Jackley and the group visited the gap in President Trump’s wall at the Cocopah Indian Reservation, a site marked by abandoned ladders used to illegally enter into the United States, a recently constructed border wall, and the Colorado River. The Attorneys General also held a roundtable discussion with local authorities to discuss the increased cost and the impact illegal immigrants have had on their communities.

Other Attorney Generals in the group were from: Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina, and Utah.

The trip was organized by the Republican Attorneys General Association.

 

RENEWABLE ENERGY INDUSTRY POWERS NEW JOB GROWTH IN SOUTH DAKOTA

MITCHELL, S.D. (Bart Pfankuch / South Dakota News Watch) – Matthew Pearson found a successful career in the wind energy industry purely by chance.

After graduating from high school in Vermillion, Pearson knew he didn’t want to pursue a four-year degree and instead scrolled through the list of majors offered at Mitchell Tech, one of the state’s four technical colleges.

“When I came to the wind energy program, I thought, ‘Well, that sounds kind of cool,’” Pearson, 28, recalled during a recent interview at Mitchell Tech, the only South Dakota college with a designated wind energy major.

He didn’t know it at the time, but Pearson had stumbled into one of the fastest-growing, highest-paying trade fields in the state and nation.

While workforce shortages plague many industries and employers in the Rushmore State, great opportunities abound for skilled workers to build, operate and maintain renewable energy facilities, including at wind farms. Meanwhile, strong partnerships between technical colleges, employers and the Build Dakota Scholarship program have forged a ready pathway to quickly and effectively fill the need for energy workers.

Pearson obtained a Build Dakota Scholarship that paid all tuition for a two-year wind technology degree, then spent about $15,000 to complete another two-year major in electrical construction.

After graduation, he quickly landed a job wiring wind towers at locations around the country. He was initially paid about $80,000 a year, and after six years was making $127,000 plus a daily living fee of $140.

But now, with a fiancee and two children, Pearson is completing a circle by leaving field work and returning to Mitchell Tech to become its only wind energy program instructor.

Pearson said that in addition to teaching the skills needed to thrive in the renewable energy field, he’ll also share the good news about their job prospects.

“There’s been a steady uptick in the need for workforce,” he said. “When I would get to a jobsite, there would be three or four companies there, and they’d always come over and ask, ‘Hey, you want to come work for us instead?’”

77% of state’s power from renewable energy

South Dakota is among the top three states nationally in percentage of energy generated from renewable sources, leaving it well positioned to provide both jobs in the field and trainers like Pearson who will help meet demand for workers.

About 77% of the power used in the state comes from non-fossil fuel sources, largely from water and wind, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The state has three solar farms but no plans filed for more.

Since the mid-1950s, South Dakota has generated significant energy from its four hydroelectric power plants on the Missouri River.

And over roughly the past 15 years, the state has seen a tenfold increase in wind energy production, according to the state Public Utilities Commission. That growth has created a healthy number of construction and maintenance jobs.

In 2009, the state had 190 turbines capable of producing about 350 megawatts (MW) of electricity. At the end of 2024, South Dakota was home to 1,417 turbines able to generate about 3,600 MW of energy. The PUC also approved a 68-turbine project with a capacity of 260 MW and a $621 million price tag near Clear Lake in March.

“We’ve had just a tremendous expansion of wind energy in South Dakota,” said Chris Nelson, a PUC commissioner. “Today, though, we’re in a little bit of a lull.”

The expected slowdown is due to a lack of transmission lines capable of carrying more power, most of which heads east out of the state, Nelson said.

Despite the infrastructure challenges, renewable energy still has a bright future, he said. Two nonprofit energy consortiums that manage the power grid in the upper Midwest plan to spend a combined $37 billion to expand transmission capacity, including in South Dakota, over roughly the next decade.

Two majors, 100% job placement

At Lake Area Technical College in Watertown, students are offered two energy-related degree tracks, said president Tiffany Sanderson.

The energy technology major provides training in development and maintenance of energy systems, and the energy operations degree is aimed at managing an energy facility.

“In our energy programs, those are students interested in working with their hands and solving engineering or process-oriented problems,” she said. “They’re very mechanically minded and can figure out how to make sure power is produced reliably so people don’t have delays in service.”

During a recent tour of the technology labs, students used 3D printers, developed and analyzed system efficiency and worked on unique projects like a solar-powered ice fishing shanty.

The two programs have about two dozen students combined, Sanderson said. In the 2023 graduating class, 100% of all graduates were employed within six months, with average salaries of $65,000 a year in the technology major and $69,000 a year in operations.

“That is for their first jobs in the industry, so those are tremendous opportunities for a brand new graduate with two years of college education,” she said.

‘Crazy’ number of jobs available

In May, Nathaniel Bekaert will become one of those new graduates from Lake Area Tech.

Bekaert, 28, grew up on a farm and came to the college after six years in the U.S. Army, which paid for almost all of his tuition, fees and equipment costs.

After touring the Gavins Point Dam hydroelectric plant in Yankton on the Nebraska border and interning at the Big Stone Power Plant near the Minnesota border, Bekaert was sold on the idea of working as a mechanic in the energy field.

“The more you learn, the more you want to dive into it,” he said.

With his anticipated degree and work experience, Bekaert said he was recruited extensively by energy companies.

“The amount of energy companies coming in looking for workers is crazy, and you can’t really grasp how many companies are looking for energy students,” he said. “There are a dozen or more companies within 45 minutes from here that are actively looking for technicians and operators or people with some type of energy degree.”

As a native of the Watertown area, Bekaert has accepted a job close to home as a wind technician at the Crowned Ridge wind farm northeast of the city, where he will make $29 an hour plus a $5,000 signing bonus and a $200 annual stipend for work boots.

Crowned Ridge is operated by NextEra Energy, a Florida-based company that runs wind farms across the country. A recent check of NextEra’s website revealed 396 job openings, with 185 related specifically to wind energy.

“No matter what happens with fossil fuels, we can keep going (with renewable energy) and live off that, and it will benefit everybody in the world. And we won’t have to rely on another country,” Bekaert said of his career choice.

A systematic approach to workforce development

The South Dakota technical school system, which also includes campuses in Sioux Falls and Rapid City, has developed a close working relationship with the energy industry to ensure students learn the right skills and employers can tap into a pipeline of well-trained workers.

Lake Area Tech officials go into local public schools to promote energy and other trade jobs starting in elementary grades, Sanderson said.

At Mitchell Tech, vice president for enrollment services Clayton Deuter said the college now offers a one-year wind energy degree instead of a two-year program, a change made after energy companies said some skills taught in the longer program could be obtained on the job instead.

Deuter said the energy programs at Mitchell Tech are an easy sell to students and their parents due to the low cost compared to a four-year college and the availability of Build Dakota scholarships in which students get tuition paid if they work in South Dakota for three years after graduation.

Mitchell Tech also offers a dual-enrollment program to high school students so they can have a wind energy degree from the college in hand by the time they graduate.

“You think about return on investment, and here you can take one year in the wind turbine program and you can graduate and make $80,000 to $100,000 a year,” Deuter said. “With student loan debt being so crazy, you don’t have to bankrupt yourself financially and be tethered to a student loan payment when you’re trying to buy a house and start a family.”

One of the state’s biggest renewable energy employers is Marmen Energy in Brandon. The Canadian-owned company has 285 employees who build wind towers up to 300-feet tall that are shipped to wind farms nationwide.

Aimee Miritello, human resources manager, said the company’s relationships with high schools and technical colleges form a pillar of its worker recruitment strategy to overcome a nagging lack of workers in the trade fields.

“Historically for us that has been one of our best ways of getting qualified employees,” she said.

Marmen has expanded its South Dakota plant to accommodate what Miritello said has been a steady increase in demand for wind towers across the country.

Marmen workers, who include welders, painters and other construction tradespeople, make a good wage, are offered one of the best benefit packages in the region and have strong opportunities for internal advancement, she said.

“Plus, they’re a part of making huge wind towers, so their pride in that is pretty big,” she said.

 

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PROPOSES SATELLITE CUTS, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR EROS IN SOUTH DAKOTA?

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (John Hult / South Dakota Searchlight) – A preliminary budget request from President Donald Trump takes aim at a satellite program with a 50-year history whose data is housed just northeast of Sioux Falls, at a facility employing hundreds of people.

Trump’s discretionary budget request for NASA would cut $1.1 billion in funding for Earth observation programs, including what the request describes as cuts to the “gold-plated, two billion dollar Landsat Next” mission. The cut amounts to roughly half of the space agency’s budget for Earth observation, which includes money for Landsat design.

Landsat Next is planned as the next generation of Landsat, whose nine iterations have created the longest continuously collected Earth observation record in history. The first satellite launched in 1972.

NASA builds and launches Landsat satellites. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) operates them and curates the data collected by them.

The USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center near Sioux Falls has housed Landsat data since 1973, in addition to millions of images from other satellites and modern and historical aerial imagery, all of which is accessible at no cost to users. Landsat’s free data is used to calibrate data from commercial satellites, contributing to what the USGS calculated last fall as a $25.6 billion return on public investment since the agency began freely sharing data in 2008.

The most recent satellite in the series, Landsat 9, entered low-earth orbit in 2021. Between that satellite and its near-identical predecessor, Landsat 8, the system gathers new imagery data of the entire Earth’s surface — as well as imagery from spectral bands like infrared that are invisible to the naked eye and measurements of Earth surface temperatures — every eight days.

Landsat Next was set to launch around 2030, with improvements in resolution and speedier repeat image collection.

Trump’s budget request would “restructure” the Landsat Next mission “while NASA studies more affordable ways to maintain the continuity of Landsat imagery, which is used by natural resource managers, States, and industry.”

The request also calls for the elimination of $562 million in USGS funding. The change “eliminates programs that provide grants to universities, duplicate other Federal research programs and focus on social agendas (e.g., climate change) to instead focus on achieving dominance in energy and critical minerals,” Trump’s budget request says.

The cut to USGS amounts to about a third of its $1.6 billion budget.

The budget request is separate from the federal government’s efforts under Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to pare down the federal workforce.

Probationary employees across multiple federal agencies were first dismissed in February, but many returned to the federal payroll and placed on paid administrative leave after legal challenges.

It’s unclear how those moves to reduce the federal workforce have impacted the EROS Center.

Around 600 government employees and contractors work at the center, according to the latest figures posted on the USGS website, but the site including that figure hasn’t changed since March 2023.

Emails from South Dakota Searchlight to USGS press contacts at EROS and in regional and national offices on the number of employees who’ve departed since Jan. 25 went unanswered.

Searchlight also asked about the potential impact of the USGS budget cut proposal to EROS science programs, and about how changes to the Landsat program could affect EROS.

A NASA spokesperson told South Dakota Searchlight that the agency would be in a better position to respond “once we receive the President’s full budget request in the coming weeks.”

U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-South Dakota, pointed out that presidential budget requests are “aspirational” and “rarely implemented as written.”

“Dusty will continue to be supportive of Landsat’s efforts in Congress,” said a Johnson spokesperson.

The NASA budget has not emerged as a discussion point in budget reconciliation talks underway in Washington, D.C., on Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill.”

U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, sounded similar notes in his response to questions about Landsat.

“The president’s discretionary budget is just that — discretionary. It outlines the president’s priorities and wish lists, but it will ultimately be our job in Congress to set the budget and appropriate federal dollars,” Rounds said in an emailed statement.

Representatives for Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota did not return emails requesting comment on Landsat and EROS.

Republican South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden told Searchlight during a visit to Sioux Falls recently that he hadn’t heard about requested cuts to the satellite program or to the USGS.

Even so, Rhoden said he trusts that an open relationship with the Trump administration on South Dakota’s priorities will help preserve them through budget negotiations.

“They give you some wiggle room as far as what your priorities are, and so I’m kind of optimistic that they are tempering some of those decisions with common sense,” Rhoden said.

Trump’s actions have had at least one public impact on EROS, though not an operational one.

EROS is home to a supercomputer whose processing power is shared across multiple arms of the Department of Interior. The system came to EROS with the name Denali, named after the tallest peak in the U.S.

Like the Alaska mountain after which the computer was named, the Denali system at EROS was renamed “McKinley” after the issuance of a Trump executive order.

Denali has long been the mountain’s name among Alaska’s Indigenous Athabascans, but the federal government embraced the name given to it by a prospector for about 100 years. The prospector called it “Mount McKinley,” after then-presidential candidate William McKinley.

President Barack Obama renamed it Denali in 2015, matching the name the surrounding national park had taken nearly 40 years earlier.

The order does not mention the USGS or supercomputers, but rather instructs the Department of Interior to “update the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) to reflect the renaming and reinstatement of Mount McKinley.”

The EROS supercomputer’s name was changed based on the order, however.

“Pursuant to President Trump’s Executive Order No. 14172, ‘Restoring Names that Honor American Greatness,’ this supercomputer has been renamed to McKinley,” a poster in the EROS visitor area now reads.

 

NEBRASKA LAWMAKERS WILL TRY TO RECONSIDER SLOWING DOWN VOTER APPROVED MINIMUM WAGE INCREASES

LINCOLN, NE – A week after the procedural failure of a proposal to slow down voter-approved minimum wage increases, Nebraska lawmakers on Thursday will try to reconsider the final vote.

If the bill’s previous supporters hold, the measure would have enough support to pass. State Sen. Tony Sorrentino of the Elkhorn area, a freshman lawmaker, missed the final vote to pass Legislative Bill 258, from State Sen. Jane Raybould of Lincoln.

That’s because the vote came up about two hours earlier than expected after lead opponent State Sen. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln realized Sorrentino’s absence and changed tactics.

The bill failed 31-17. Amending a law that voters enact requires at least 33 votes. LB 258 would make annual bumps to the minimum wage smaller and more predictable, supporters say, and create carveouts to pay teen workers less.

One listed “no” vote, State Sen. Beau Ballard of Lincoln, supported the bill originally but tried to sit out the vote to let lawmakers reconsider the vote. He was marked as a “no” vote under a rule change in January. A reconsideration motion requires a senator on the “prevailing” side to want to change a vote, or the requesting senator must have missed the vote.

Sorrentino missed last Wednesday’s vote, because he was escorting colleagues he met through business to a meeting across the street. Of opponents who consider the issue decided, Sorrentino said, “We all have to learn the rules of the Legislature.”

Multiple senators said such a reconsideration motion on a bill from final reading, while likely allowed under the legislative rules, hadn’t been used since 1984.

The effort could ignite a rules fight over whether the reconsideration should be allowed.

Speaker John Arch of La Vista confirmed this week that a reconsideration motion would come Thursday, though he said he couldn’t say when. The Legislature will take up either Ballard’s motion or a new reconsideration motion Sorrentino filed Tuesday, the final day he could do so under the Legislature’s rules. At least 30 senators must agree to reconsider.

Arch said only the reconsideration motion would be discussed Thursday. If successful, he would be able to reschedule LB 258 in the future, instead of supporters needing to find a different bill to attach the measure to.

LB 258 is Raybould’s 2025 priority bill. She is the lone Democrat in favor of LB 258 as well as a separate LB 415 to weaken a voter-approved paid sick leave framework that takes effect Oct. 1, after 2024 passage. Republican State Sen. Dave Wordekemper of Fremont opposes LB 258 and the current version of LB 415. There are 33 Republicans in the officially nonpartisan body.

There were some initial conversations about attaching LB 258 to LB 415. That approach heightens the risk that voters could repeal the legislative changes and go back to the voter-approved language, which some advocates have discussed as a response to LB 415.

Asked to comment on the reconsideration, Raybould said, “No.”

She said a reporter should ask Conrad for comment, who Raybould said was already discussing the motion. Last week, she said she thought Democratic-aligned lawmakers were acting in “goodwill,” because they knew Raybould had the votes.

The fight has been personal for Raybould, a longtime grocery store executive, who views the legislation as creating a “balance” that progressives, including Conrad, have rejected.

“I have never seen such a blatant, bald-faced, self-serving, self-dealing, selfish, unethical example of self-dealing as this bill in the Legislature,” State Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha said during an April 1 debate.

Sorrentino, a former business owner, said he’s personally not in favor of a legislated minimum wage, describing himself as a “true fan of supply and demand.” He said the market is a better indicator.

Sorrentino said it’s not a vote about “putting people in poverty, because frankly, I’ve seen cases where minimum wage is never going to fly, it’s way too low.”

What LB 258 would do

Legislative Bill 258, related to the state minimum wage, would remove inflationary bumps after the base wage rises to $15 on Jan. 1, which voters approved in 2022. Future increases would be fixed at a 1.75% annual rate beginning in 2026. That was a deal struck between State Sens. Jane Raybould of Lincoln, the sponsor, and Stan Clouse of Kearney to provide “certainty.”

Average inflation, as calculated by the ballot measure’s current language, was 2.6% last year and 4.18% for the past five years. Over the past 10 years, inflation was 2.63%. And over the past 25 years, it was 2.39%, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for the Midwest.

LB 258 would also create a “youth minimum wage” for workers aged 14 or 15. Beginning next year, those young workers could be paid $13.50 (the current minimum wage), which would increase by 1.5% every five years, beginning in 2030.

The youth minimum wage would stay below $15 — the floor that voters created for all workers beginning Jan. 1 — until 2065 under LB 258, according to a Nebraska Examiner analysis.

Teen workers aged 16 to 19 could still be paid a “training wage,” which would no longer apply to 14 or 15 year olds with the creation of the “youth minimum wage.” The training wage allows employers to pay teen workers a lower rate for up to the first 90 days of employment.

Current law allows the training wage to be 75% of the federal minimum wage, so as low as $5.44. LB 258 would increase the training wage to $13.50 beginning in September. The amended training wage would rise by 1.5% annually beginning in 2027.