Representatives from five northeastern South Dakota electric cooperatives met with local legislators on Nov. 18 to discuss issues for the upcoming 2026 legislative session. The forum is an annual event hosted by local cooperatives across the state in conjunction with South Dakota Rural Electric Association (SDREA). The forum gives cooperatives the chance to advocate for their member owners.

“This annual event allows us to highlight the issues that are important to electric cooperatives, our members and our rural communities,” Northern Electric Cooperative General Manager/CEO Char Hager said.

Board members and staff from Cam-Wal Electric Cooperative, FEM Electric Association, Lake Region Electric Cooperative, Traverse Electric Cooperative, and Northern Electric Cooperative were in attendance at the 2025 Northeast Rural Utilities Legislative Issues Forum. They had a chance to connect with Representative Brandei Schaefbauer of Aberdeen, Representative Lana Greenfield of Doland, Representative Carl Perry of Aberdeen, Representative Scott Moore of Ipswich, and Senator Brandon Wipf of Lake Byron.

In addition, representatives from East River Electric Cooperative and Basin Electric Power Cooperative were in attendance. East River is a transmission cooperative that provides power to 28 cooperatives, including Northern Electric and the other cooperatives at the forum. Basin Electric Power Cooperative is a North Dakota-based generation and transmission cooperative that supplies power to cooperatives across nine states, including East River cooperatives. 

Lake Region General Manager Jeremy Lindemann gave the welcome remarks. In addition to quick overviews of the cooperatives, Chris Studer, East River’s chief member and public relations officer, and Steve Barnett, general manager of SDREA, gave a presentation to legislators on the difference between Demand and Energy, future load growth for East River and Basin, and strategies to protect current members from additional risk associated with large load users. They also discussed two pieces of legislation in 2026 that could directly impact cooperatives— wildfire mitigation and data center bills.

The floor was then opened to the legislators to ask questions. Data centers dominated the conversation. Andy Buntrock, vice president of strategic planning and communications at Basin, was able to address many of the concerns. Recently, Basin has created a large load policy that would require hyperscale load to take on a large percentage of the costs related to new generation, transmission resources.

The cooperatives thanked the legislators for their time and interest in learning more about cooperatives.