South Dakota Legislature Gets In the Act
South Dakota legislators representing landowners directly in the Keystone route, are attempting to provide additional protections to owners. The proposed bill is limited to out of state companies acquiring land. This raises interesting issues of interferences with interstate commerce, but the Dormant Commerce Clause will be dealt with in some future blog post. What is relevant to the article is that what the legislators want is not something that will substantially interfere with Keystone or other foreign corporation activity. The time parameters of 180 days is likely far too long, but the notion of property description and project description and offer premised on appraisal is something that is required in almost all jurisdictions.
A company seeking an easement would send affected landowners a description of the project.
The company would make an initial offer. Landowners would have 180 days to respond (an amendment would halve the response time).
The company would submit a counteroffer. A final response would have to be filed 30 days before it could pursue a condemnation action.
The company would then have to go through what Temple called a "condemnation approval checklist" that includes paying for an independent land appraisal, if the landowner wishes, and collecting all major state and federal siting permits.
