Iowa landowner Kathy Stockdale spoke Friday in defense of private property rights and against use of eminent domain for the carbon capture pipelines. She said she has six parcels being affected by the Summit proposal.
Stockdale questioned if those who believe in climate change don’t also believe in the God who created the heavens and the earth. She asked if the climate is not under the control of God.
“Are the donations you are receiving worth turning your back on the God of creation,” she asked. If you have trouble saying no to those donations, just talk to some of us landowners. Our offer is bigger than anything you ever got as a donation and we have the courage to say no because there are some things more important to us than money.”
She also blasted those claiming it is a state issue and not a federal one.
“It is (the federal government) that has been providing the funding for these pipelines,” she said. “And you in state government, as we went to the Capitol this last year, those senators would refuse to meet with us. They had a chance to do something and they didn’t.”
Stockdale added that landowners asked to meet with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds for two years and she met with two couples, but that left thousands of affected families out of the conversation.
“Even when we met with you, you yourself said you do not believe in climate change,” Stockdale said. “So why are you supporting these pipelines?”
Stockdale quoted Reynolds from her response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address in 2022. In that response, Reynolds said:
“You shouldn’t have to wake up every morning and worry about the next thing the government is going to do to you, your business or your children.”
“Well Governor, we as landowners have not had a good night’s sleep since we first received the notice that we had a hazardous CO2 pipeline coming through our farms,” Stockdale said. “If allowed to go forward, we will always wake up wondering what else a private, for-profit company will be taking from us because we will no longer have control of what happens on our own property.”
This will fall on deaf ears. I emailed Kim Reynold’s in early 2020 and got a response of, you can call our number anytime. No answer to the problem I contacted her about in the first place.