SERC roundup: staff summarizes 2026 session bills affecting wildfire mitigation, water projects, EMS funding and volunteer firefighter PPE
Loading...
Summary
SERC received a legislative briefing summarizing signed 2026 bills of interest, including a law enabling utility wildfire mitigation plans with possible liability limits, appropriations for water and PFAS cleanup, a task force on EMS funding, and a $5 million PPE grant appropriation for volunteer fire departments.
Trish Kim, legislative liaison at the South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources, briefed the commission on several bills signed during the 2026 legislative session that have relevance for emergency planning and response.
Kim said Senate Bill 36 establishes a framework allowing utilities to submit wildfire mitigation plans for public review and PUC oversight; as written it may limit certain liability if utilities follow the plans and report annually. “I glanced through it and it seemed to me that it established a process by which a utility can put together a wildfire mitigation plan,” Kim said, adding she was offering a high‑level summary rather than a legal interpretation.
Senate Bill 37, Kim said, is the annual water and environmental appropriations bill but contains a section allowing the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources to use up to $250,000 to contract for statewide cleanup of waste tires and solid waste such as firefighting foams that contain PFAS; Kim said that means the department will likely run another PFAS‑containing firefighting foam collection this year. The bill was signed by the governor on March 24.
She also summarized Senate Bill 89, which creates a task force to study emergency medical services as an essential service and how it is funded (signed March 25), and Senate Bill 136, which appropriated $5 million from the General Fund through 2030 to provide grants for personal protective equipment to volunteer fire departments that meet the bill’s volunteer thresholds (signed March 23). Kim said House Bill 1188, which limits certain liabilities for removal of disabled vehicles and spilled cargo, also passed and was signed March 9.
Doug Hinkle, State Fire Marshal, cautioned that establishing mitigation plans with regulatory review can raise the evidentiary bar for civil liability unless plaintiffs show a utility failed to follow its mitigation plan. “We’d have to prove negligence upon them because if they have that mitigation plan, it's gonna be tougher to prove in court that they was liable,” Hinkle said.
Kim encouraged commissioners who want more detail on any specific bill to consult the 2026 legislative session website at sdlegislature.gov and related gubernatorial press releases.
