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I’ve heard from many of you about your experiences with CO2 pipeline negotiations. This week, we passed a bill through the State Government committtee to provide some protections for landowners during these negotiations.

Our bill says that no pipeline company can use or seek eminent domain through March 1, 2023. At this time, the legislature will be back in session and prepared to take further action if necessary.  Our goal is to protect the property rights of all Iowans, those who want to do business with pipelines and those that don’t.

I think this compromise is the best way forward because it allows negotiations to continue without government interference, but also without the threat of eminent domain being abused.  The goal is not to stop any pipeline projects, but to ensure landowners and pipeline builders are negotiating on a level playing field.

As always, please reach out to me to share your thoughts and experiences on this matter. We are keeping a close eye on this situation, and your feedback is essential to ensuring we know how best to act going forward.

Author: Pat Grassley

5 COMMENTS

  1. Speaker Grassley,

    Please show us plebes, where in Iowa’s Constitution — where We the People, who established the inferior government known as the State of Iowa — we even entrusted you and your colleagues, the power to take one’s property for the purpose of enriching a private company?

    Preamble: “WE, THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF IOWA, grateful to the Supreme Being for the blessings hitherto enjoyed, and feeling our dependence on Him for a continuance of those blessings, do ordain and establish a free and independent government, by the name of the STATE OF IOWA, the boundaries whereof shall be as follows:”

    Article 1, Section 1 — Rights of Persons
    “All men and women are, by nature, free and equal, and have certain inalienable rights–among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness.”

    Note: So important to We the People of Iowa, that We put it first and foremost in our State’s Bill of Rights, unlike our US Constitution which places the freedom of religion and speech 1st.

    Article 1, Section 2 — Political Power
    “All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or reform the same, whenever the public good may require it.”

    Note: If you continue to jeopardize our protections, security and benefit, we then have the right at any time (don’t have to wait for any election) to alter or reform Iowa’s government whenever Our good requires it.

    Article 1, Section 6 — Laws Uniform
    “All laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation; the general assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens.”

    Note: Thanks to your farcical shenanigans with medical freedoms, pornographic school lessons, among other abuses and at hand threats of eminent domain to make way for a series of CO2 pipelines for your private cronies, you are violating your oath to uphold this section.

    Article 1, Section 7 — Liberty of Speech and Press
    “Every person may speak, write, and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right. No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech, or of the press. In all prosecutions or indictments for libel, the truth may be given in evidence to the jury, and if it appears to the jury that the matter charged as libellous was true, and was published with good motives and for justifiable ends, the party shall be acquitted.”

    Note: The State Senate and House stood by and said nothing as your private sector cronies went to Court to restrain landowners from networking and sharing information designed to stop the pipeline.

    Article 1, Section 16 — Treason
    “Treason against the state shall consist only in levying war against it, adhering to its enemies, or giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the evidence of two witnesses to the same overt act, or confession in open court.”

    Note: It’s my sentiment that a case could be made that enabling the enemies of We The People to scoop up properties for a song or political payoff, or otherwise diminish Our inalienable liberties and rights qualifies as “adhering to its enemies, or giving them aid and comfort”. To whit, China buying up control of land and industries. Big Banks, Pharma Tech, etc abusing We The People.

    Article 1, Section 19 — Eminent Domain
    “Private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation first being made, or secured to be made to the owner thereof, as soon as the damages shall be assessed by a jury, who shall not take into consideration any advantages that may result to said owner on account of the improvement for which it is taken.

    The general assembly, however, may pass laws permitting the owners of lands to construct drains, ditches, and levees for agricultural, sanitary or mining purposes across the lands of others, and provide for the organization of drainage districts, vest the proper authorities with power to construct and maintain levees, drains and ditches and to keep in repair all drains, ditches, and levees heretofore constructed under the laws of the state, by special assessments upon the property benefited thereby. The general assembly may provide by law for the condemnation of such real estate as shall be necessary for the construction and maintenance of such drains, ditches and levees, and prescribe the method of making such condemnation.”

    Note: with respect to the 1st paragraph, I can see a jury awarding the landlord triple (treble damages is a legacy of inalienable Natural Law) the value of land being taken by a “forced sale”; for that is land that can’t be freely used by the landowner, nor passed on to heirs. This would seem to comport with the final clause of the 1st paragraph, “who shall not take into consideration any advantages that may result to said owner on account of the improvement for which it is taken”.

    With regards to the 2nd paragraph; “drains, ditches, and levees for agricultural, sanitary or mining purposes”. I don’t see ‘CO2 pipeline’ enumerated here, let alone for “public use” in the 1st paragraph. In fact, “Climate Change” is not even recognized anywhere within the Constitution.

    The public needs a delivery or transport system for fuel, water, sewage, electricity, communications, but the public doesn’t NEED CO2 abatement. It is but the latest scam by fraudsters to separate We the People from our money and give it to connected cronies.

    Notwithstanding being told repeatedly to “trust the science”, there is no valid science for the need to bury CO2. In fact, the opposite is true. Farmers are reaping bounty crops because plants need all the CO2 they can get. The more CO2 they get, the more oxygen they give.

    That is nature’s own definition of carbon sequestration, as designed by God almighty. So what happens when we remove a significant amount of CO2? Will the government then come to us, demanding we subsidize farmers for reduced crops?

    Let this be a public notice to stay faithful to the Constitution as per your oath and not seek ways to debase our contract with the government in order to amass more power to yourself and the elites you currently serve.

    As an aside, the only way to constitutionally get from here to there is to amend and expand the Constitution. And good luck trying to amend Our Constitution to include the false religion of Climate Science. The People will not support it. But who knows, y’all might try it anyway since our elections are still insecure and wide open to manipulation to achieve the desired results.

  2. This sounds all to familiar. They said the same thing about the vaccine mandates. Trying to appease the serfs. It’s not going to work this time..

  3. I wonder why we even give communists, socialists, Marxists, proponents of Islamic Shariah law and reprobates like the gay lobby, a voice at the table in the first place. John Adams said the Constitution was not made for these ideological mindsets and it will never work for them. Everything these anti-Christ/Constitution types do is to weaken and tear down our sacred Documents. So, why listen to them as if their free speech has any value or credence? Learn to discern and spot them out. Understand their tendencies to achieve their agendas by using cronyism, nepotism and subterfuge as unethical tools. Put it together. Don’t be fooled by those even claiming to be Christian – ye shall know them by their fruits. Do they live by every word of God, or do they have a slightly skewed theology, something slightly different than what is written? If these Pharisaical hucksters will bend God’s Word to enslave, then why be surprised if they bend the Constitution? We were all born into a ready-made world that is NOT our heavenly Father’s world, at least not yet. Government is a necessary evil that must be restrained by vigilant watchmen who stand guard upon the wall of liberty, who keep our servants bound by their oath to us and to God. Challenge every candidate running if they will keep their oath to the Constitution and to God. Have them publicly define and explain what that means to them.

  4. Another year will change nothing. Branstad is on Summit Board and Vilsack’s son is also involved in this so big money coming down the “pipeline” so to speak. They need more time to raise even more money and line up good lawyers. And yes, maybe next year we’ll be past the midterms and they’ll still do what they intend to do – make the most money they can and am sure there will be kickbacks to the “faithful” in the legislature. “Oh what a wicked web we weave when we first start to deceive.”

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