Earth haters want to protect South Dakota utilities from liability

Hypocrisy is a Republican trait. 

The Legion Lake Fire represented strategic failures by Black Hills Energy, the State of South Dakota, Game, Fish and Plunder and the South Dakota Republican Party. The absence of prescribed burns and the persistence of invasive cheatgrass in the state park named for a war criminal are just two more examples of piss poor planning by GFP. Instead of allowing native aspen to be restored stands of doghair ponderosa pine that grew after the Galena Fire still feed current blazes. Just as the State of South Dakota sued Black Hills Power and Light after the Grizzly Gulch Fire Black Hills Energy should have sued the shit out of South Dakota for the Legion Lake Fire for not letting crews cut ladder fuels in a right of way under a power line.

Since 2013 alone at least 41 fires in the Black Hills region have been caused by trees falling on transmission lines because my home state of South Dakota is a perpetual welfare state and a permanent disaster area. Counties should be able to fine property owners who fail to create defensible space or clear dry fuels. Well-funded local and volunteer fire departments could conduct prescribed fires and burn road ditches to create buffers where contract fire specialists don’t exist. But even government can't always protect you from your own stupidity. Roughly 4 million trees stand close enough to Black Hills Electric Cooperative lines to potentially cause damage and high wind events in the region frequently causing trees to fall so an interim governor can beg DC for bailouts for utilities.

Millions of home insurance contracts have been dropped as companies like State Farm and lobbyists like the American Property Casualty Insurance Association acknowledge humanity's role in a burning planet. Now, as utilities scramble to avoid liability for wildfires, insurance companies are bilking homeowners and denying coverage interfering with mortgages, real estate values and property ownership. 

Earth hater State Senator Steve Kolbeck is the director of business affairs for Xcel Energy and prime sponsor of Senate Bill 36 because utilities are not your friends.

Dick Tieszen identified himself as an attorney with State Farm. He called the bill a “clever shift” in legal burdens. “It transfers the large risk to the public, to the people who are right behind by those fires. I think we should leave strict liability in place. Leave the risk of loss with the party that is best able to prevent the loss in the first place. They knew the risk when they engaged in this business,” Tieszen said. “They accepted it, but today, they come to you and they ask you to change the rules. I suggest that what will really happen here is that’s going to land squarely land in your lap, in my lap and the property owners of places in the Black Hills, whether it’s homes or businesses.” [Bill Janklow's idea of public radio]