Natural gas

A natural gas meter. (Getty Images)

Federal agency threatens funding reduction over South Dakota’s lax pipeline safety enforcement

BY: - November 7, 2023

Federal regulators say they’ll reduce grant funding to South Dakota if the state doesn’t do a better job preventing excavation damage to buried pipelines.  The warning came in a letter this month from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), after a July review. For the second year in a […]

The Intervenor: Lone customer enters procedural fray over gas and electric rates

BY: - April 15, 2023

As an unassuming and good-natured retiree, Steve Wegman might not seem like the type to make headlines. But he did recently, as the only “intervenor” participating in the state’s two ongoing utility rate adjustment cases with MidAmerican Energy and Xcel Energy. MidAmerican wanted to raise customers’ natural gas bills by just over 6% but was […]

An oil pumpjack casts a shadow on a wall as it pulls oil from the Permian Basin oil field on March 14, 2022, in Odessa, Texas. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

U.S. House passes sweeping energy bill pushing back against Biden climate policies

BY: - March 30, 2023

WASHINGTON – The U.S. House on Thursday approved a bill packed with Republican energy priorities meant to counteract the Biden administration’s approach and boost U.S. oil and gas production. Numbered H.R. 1 as a signal that energy policy is the House majority’s top legislative priority, the bill includes a package of GOP proposals, ranging from […]

A natural gas meter. (Getty Images)

State regulators approve partial rollback of natural gas price increase

BY: - March 28, 2023

MidAmerican Energy’s 6% natural gas rate increase in South Dakota will be rolled back to 5.4%. The over 100,000 South Dakotans who get natural gas from the company can expect the change to take effect in May. The rate change will affect commercial customers as well as residential. MidAmerican proposed the 6% increase last May. […]

Utility employees work on downed power lines after Hurricane Laura passed through the area on Aug. 27, 2020, in Lake Charles, Louisiana. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Affordable, reliable and sustainable: report compares utility performance

BY: - January 19, 2023

A nationwide comparison of electric utility performance by an Illinois consumer advocacy group found that customers in states that are heavily reliant on fuel oil and natural gas, as in the Northeast and South, tend to pay more than those with larger amounts of carbon-free generation, among other findings.  The report by the Illinois-based Citizens […]

Natural gas tanks

NorthWestern customers to see bump in monthly refunds from overpriced pollution clean-up

BY: - November 18, 2022

More than 48,000 NorthWestern Energy customers in South Dakota will see higher refunds in their utility bills over the next year. The Public Utilities Commission approved a plan by the company on Friday that will bump up the refunds it has used to pay back customers since 2016 for a cleanup project that came in […]

(Getty Images)

State regulators warn of high natural gas bills this winter

BY: - October 26, 2022

South Dakota’s Public Utilities Commission is advising natural gas customers to prepare for rising prices in the coming months. Experts have identified high global demand, growth in the consumption of natural gas that outpaces production, and record exports of liquified natural gas as reasons for rising prices expected this winter, the commission said in a […]