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(Continued from page 14)
• "We've gone through an exhaustive process and it is decision time," Baird said.
• Heitkamp said she thinks the overall debate on Keystone has gone beyond the specific issues with the pipeline itself.
• "It's a method of transporting oil," Heitkamp said of the Keystone project. "And now it's taken a persona that is much larger."
• Heitkamp said she promised Baird and Doer she would press the issue on Capitol Hill.
• The Keystone pipeline would transport "a product we can use from a country is friendly to the United States," she said.
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Official says no need to boost SD highway taxes
CHET BROKAW, Associated Press
• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- South Dakota's highways are in good shape and there's no need to boost state highway taxes, Transportation Secretary Darin Bergquist said Wednesday.
• However, the situation could change if Congress cuts the federal funding that helps states maintain and construct roads and bridges, Bergquist told state lawmakers.
• Bergquist met with the Senate Transportation Committee to present an update on highway funding, and another session is planned later to discuss details about the condition of South Dakota's roads and bridges.
• A state Transportation Department study done six years ago indicated the state needed an extra $160 million a year for highway and bridge work. Bergquist said highway financing is in much better shape now because revenue from existing tax rates has increased and the state got $183 million in extra federal highway money in 2009 under the stimulus program.
• The stimulus money financed a lot of projects in a three-year period, Bergquist said.
• "We did a lot of good pavement work at that time that helped drive the overall condition of our roads," Bergquist said.
• Senate Transportation Chairman Mike Vehle, of Mitchell, is holding a series of hearings early in the legislative session to gather information on South Dakota's state and local roads and whether additional funding might be needed in the future. Any bill to increase general state highway taxes would not be introduced until at least next year, he said.
• "Do we have a problem? When does that manifest itself? How do we fix it? If that (Continued on page 16)
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