Iowa landowners in the path of a proposed pipeline could seek a court decision more quickly on whether the use of their land against their will is legal, under a bill passed Thursday by the Iowa House of Representatives.
It is the latest effort by House lawmakers to respond to some Iowa landowners’ opposition to proposed carbon dioxide capture pipelines crossing their land. The Iowa Utilities Board is currently considering Summit Carbon Solutions’ request to use the power of eminent domain to buy land from unwilling landowners along the proposed pipeline route.
Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison, said the bill would give landowners and pipeline companies the ability to get a court decision before permit proceedings are over on whether or not an eminent domain request is constitutional.
“So that they can plan accordingly, as opposed to waiting and fighting for years, their land in limbo, their futures in doubt, their lives full of tension and fear, while they plead with their elected officials to hear them,” he said.
Summit Carbon Solutions recently stated that 75% of landowners along the proposed route signed voluntary agreements to have the pipeline cross their land. The company has also proposed expanding its pipeline to connect to more ethanol plants, and pipeline opponents have urged the IUB to pause proceedings on the initial permit to consider the expanded pipeline as a whole.
Rep. Charley Thomson, R-Charles City, said the permit process for the Summit pipeline, which started in 2021, has already been going on for so long that it’s effectively a “procedural taking” of land along the pipeline route.
He said if the Iowa Utilities Board approves the pipeline, it will be challenged in court, and a final ruling could take at least three years.
“That means for that entire period, you have the century farms, landowners—people who didn’t especially want to have this pipeline going over their land and have some questions about it—not being able to sell their land at full value, or make a decision on tiling, or make a decision on estate planning,” Thomson said. “This bill corrects that.”
He said he doesn’t believe the original intent of the IUB permit process was to take land without due process.
“Land is the original asset in Iowa. It’s in our souls,” Thomson said. “An unjust taking of land without remedy is not only irritating, it’s outrageous. Let’s give Iowans a remedy.”
The bill passed 86 to 7, with most Republicans and all Democrats supporting it, and seven Republicans voting no.
It now goes to the Senate for consideration, where it’s not clear if it will get a vote.
Asked last week on Iowa PBS if the Senate Ways and Means Committee would take up this bill, Republican Sen. Dan Dawson of Council Bluffs said the bill is a unique way of addressing landowners’ concerns about the carbon pipelines.
“The whole issue is that you have left-wing progressive states like California that set up all these carbon restrictions in the first place for our Iowa farmers to sell ethanol, [and] this is the predicament we get put in,” he said. “And so trying to work through that is how we support our farmers but how we deal with some of these out-of-state regulations that are getting heaped upon us makes things complicated. But I think it’s something to definitely take a look at.”
Last year, the Senate did not take up a bill passed by the House that would have banned the use eminent domain for carbon capture pipelines unless 90% of the route is first acquired through voluntary land sales.
