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On Thursday there was a press conference featuring lawmakers, property owners and a county attorney introducing new bills intended to strengthen private property rights related to the carbon capture pipelines proposed for Iowa.
This is an issue I’ve written a lot about. But due to the inaction of IOWA REPUBLICANS — note, not Democrats, ONLY Republicans — I have to write about it at least one more time.
Property owner Kim Junker opened the event by sharing a quote from Gov. Kim Reynolds, about agriculture being the “backbone of Iowa.”
“That’s true,” Junker said. “We don’t need a bunch of unnecessary CO2 pipelines crisscrossing our state, utilizing eminent domain, tearing up our farms, destroying their productivity and drainage tile, monopolizing the CO2 and ethanol plants, draining our aquifers and power grids, all for a hypothetical economic development project.”
Representative Helena Hayes announced seven carbon pipeline bills that were introduced in the House on Thursday.
Representative Charley Thomson went into more detail as he is the legal counsel with the legislator intervener group against this CO2 pipeline project. Thomson said the bills are intended to address problems they’ve seen with the Iowa Utilities Commission and the eminent domain process.
“The problems that we see are multiplying rapidly,” Thomson said. “We know that they made errors on the constitutionality.”
Members of the IUC didn’t show up for some meetings, and Thomson said this effort will address that. The safety zone for the pipelines is now two miles in either direction, and that wasn’t contemplated under the original IUC protocols. Charles City, Thomson’s hometown, is almost entirely within that two-mile zone, he said.
Thomas Laehn is the Green County Attorney. He called the CO2 pipeline the “biggest boondoggle in the history” of Iowa.
“It violates our fundamental rights as citizens,” he said.
The Constitution guarantees government will not take property unless it is for a public use. Yet the CO2 pipelines are not for a public use.
“Here a private company has harnessed the coercive powers of the state to take property from private landowners and it’s not for a public use,” Laehn said.
Some of the bills will address the likely difficulty property owners will face finding insurance. Another will prohibit the taking of agricultural land for the construction of hazardous liquid pipelines.
“There’s no greater example of my memory of an example of money-interest gaining control of government over the objections of the people,” Laehn said, citing a poll that shows more than three-fourths of Iowans oppose the use of eminent domain for these pipelines.
An Iowa landowner said his front door will be 1,150 feet from an 8-inch pipeline.
“We were first told, when we started asking questions, it would be safe,” he said. “Since then, we’ve learned and we actually label it a ‘kill zone.’ At a minimum, with an 8-inch pipeline operating at 2,100 PSI, the kill zone would be 1,800 feet and you would be dead in less than four minutes. Your internal combustion engine in your car or pick-up will not run because the CO2 takes the oxygen out of the air. And so with my front door 1,150 feet from the pipeline, that’s a major concern. I might go to sleep one night in my bed and that’d be the end of me.”
He’s been coming to the Capitol for four years.
House Republicans have tried to defend these rights, but the Iowa Senate has refused to do the same. And Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has refused to defend the private property rights of Iowans as well.
Look, we know the people behind Summit are extremely connected politically. Bruce Rastetter. Terry Branstad. Jess Vilsack. Jake Ketzner. This isn’t complicated to figure out.
The thing that struck me was when the landowner said he had been coming to the Capitol for four years. Four years.
Guess who has had full control of the Iowa government those four years? Republicans. Guess who has refused to defend his private property rights? Republicans.
These are mostly rural Iowans. I would wager most individuals impacted by this pipeline are Republican voters. But unfortunately, Republican donors seem to matter more than Republican voters. Sadly, those same donors matter more than the rights of Iowans.
This is really unbelievable. It’s unbelievable that Gov. Reynolds, the Iowa Senate Republicans, the Republican Party of Iowa — they are all getting away with it. This isn’t just a knife in the back to these land owners, it’s a knife in the back, through the chest and out the front.
Using eminent domain for these pipelines is such a bad idea it has united conservatives and the Sierra Club. That’s not easy to do. For conservatives to align with the Sierra Club, it has to be a really, really, really bad idea.
And it is.
You can debate the wisdom behind carbon capture pipelines all you want. But you really can’t debate the use of eminent domain to take property from Iowans for these pipelines.
It is abuse and it is being facilitated by Iowa Senate Republicans and Gov. Kim Reynolds.
On Thursday, the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association sent out a press release about the press conference, erroneously referring to it as “a sparsely attended anti-pipeline protest.”
Monte Shaw said the bills introduced are a “slap in the face” to the “supermajority of Iowa landowners” who support the pipelines.
“These actions represent wrong policy at the wrong time.”
I have no idea what “supermajority” of Iowans he is talking about. No clue. I have literally never met an Iowan who supported the use of eminent domain for these pipelines. Not one. I also haven’t met one who actually supports carbon capture pipelines that doesn’t also have some financial benefit on the other end of it.
Perhaps Monte Shaw and Iowa Renewable Fuels Association hired Ann Selzer to do their poll.
The slap in the face is to Iowans who are having their private property taken from them by eminent domain for a private, for-profit project with no public use.
That’s the slap in the face.
The fact that for most of them, the political party and politicians they support are allowing it to happen, well, that’s just a punch in the gut.
It is time for the Iowa Senate to stand up for Iowans and not special interest. It’s time for Gov. Reynolds to look out for her constituents, not her donors.
It’s time to defend the private property rights of Iowans.
This shouldn’t be hard. They should do the right thing. They should defend the private property rights of Iowans, not sell them out.
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Safe and “effective.” (at doing what) plus: This doesn’t good to me. Does it sound good to you? Full steam ahead. Trampling on all of your God given rights.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-led-group-makes-204712412.html
https://www.kwwl.com/news/politics/governor-reynolds-signs-executive-order-establishing-iowa-doge-task-force/article_7b761280-e7e8-11ef-98e0-ab6287c96b2b.html