DES MOINES, Iowa (KMTV) — Iowa senators voted 27-22 late Monday to pass a bill to limit the ability of carbon sequestration pipelines to use eminent domain, sending it to the governor’s desk after a drawn-out debate.
The decision follows four years of Iowans and House lawmakers urging for eminent domain reform in response to the proposed Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline.
House File 639 comprised a number of bills passed by the House aimed at eminent domain. Senators tried repeatedly to change the scope of the bill with various amendments, none of which were adopted.
Sen. Tim Kraayenbrink, R- Fort Dodge, said amid debates on eminent domain and carbon capture pipelines, that senators were “missing the point” that the bill was poorly written and likely to create problems.
“The point is a crappy bill that we’re going to be voting on here in a little bit,” Kraayenbrink said.
Four years coming
Landowners opposed to the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline have traveled to the Capitol countless times over the past four years, urging lawmakers to move on the issue.
Many of those opposed to the pipeline own land in its path and fear its impact to their land, property values and safety.
The pipeline would transport carbon dioxide, captured from ethanol facilities, across Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, the Dakotas and into underground storage in North Dakota. The Iowa Utilities Commission granted the project eminent domain rights in June, though the project cannot begin construction until it has permits in North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota.
Proponents of the pipeline say it will allow Iowa to enter new, low-carbon ethanol markets, which would in turn help corn and soybean farmers.
The company’s permit in South Dakota was recently denied, following the state’s passage of a law preventing hazardous liquid pipelines carrying carbon dioxide from using eminent domain in the state. Summit has said it plans to reapply.
HF 639, as written, changed definitions of a common carrier, increased insurance requirements to cover any damages to property and reimburse landowners for increases in premiums due to the pipeline, set requirements for the IUC and expanded who can intervene in IUC proceedings.
A group of 12 senators signed a letter last week saying they would not vote on budget legislation until the eminent domain bill was debated. Their move stalled action on budget bills and contributed to pushing the session into overtime. Lawmakers have not received part of their per diem expense payments since May 2.
After the pipeline bill passed, senators approved the budgets for education and agriculture and natural resources, sending them to the House.
Senators planned to debate the issue on Friday, and drew a crowd of interested constituents to the Capitol, but the chambers leaders did not bring the bill to the floor.
Bousselot’s amendment fails
Sen. Mike Bousselot, R-Ankeny, the bill’s floor manager, proposed an amendment that would rewrite the bill, similar to what he had proposedin committee, that would have allowed companies to pursue voluntary easements outside of the project corridor, in order to avoid using eminent domain.
Bousselot called the original bill a “Trojan horse” bill written by “climate extremists” trying to kill the Summit pipeline project.
Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison, who sponsored HF 639, said it’s “ridiculous” to suggest the bill is about environmental extremists.
“This is not about environmental extremism at all, it’s about protecting landowners,” Holt said. “I think that the arrogance the Senate is showing, the disrespect to property owners is frankly unacceptable.”
Bousselot’s amendment would have kept HF 639 provisions requiring Iowa Utilities Commission members’ attendance at permit hearings, created a one-year deadline for permit decisions, and would have held project operators responsible for damage to the land during the lifetime of the project.
Under the amendment, the eminent domain changes would have applied to all projects seeking government permission to force unwilling landowners to give up easements for a court-determined price, not just carbon sequestration projects.
Bousselot said the amendment “protects Iowans, protects landowners of all types, for all project types.”
His amendment would have stopped carbon sequestration pipelines from using eminent domain, unless the project had been granted a permit by the IUC before the enactment date, or had a sole purpose of connecting to another project that was already granted eminent domain.
“It ends eminent domain on CO2 pipelines in a constitutional manner, on a go forward basis,” Bousselot said.
Sen. Jeff Taylor, R-Sioux Center, said it’s “not correct” to say the bill is all about killing the Summit project.
“We’re just saying you have to follow the law,” Taylor said.
Taylor said the requirement to use eminent domain is public use.
“It’s not a positive business climate, it’s not helping the agribusinesses in the state, it’s not the price of corn or helping the ethanol plants, it’s public use,” Taylor said.
Bousselot’s amendment failed narrowly, 28-22.
Democrats push for simplified, eminent domain only amendment
Democrats submitted an amendment, with language from House File 943, which the House passed in March, to ban the use of eminent domain on pipelines transporting liquified carbon dioxide.
Sen. Zach Wahls, D-Coralville, sponsored the amendment and said it would get at the “fundamental question” of eminent domain, which constituents have asked the body to debate.
Wahls said bipartisan conversations over the past several weeks have been “fractured” and “raucous.”
“I think most of the people in this room are quite tired, but I’m quite positive that there is nobody in this room more tired than the landowners who are sitting in the gallery because they’ve been taking time out of their lives, not being paid to come to this building, and ask for their voice to be heard,” Wahls said.
Bousselot argued that the amendment was not germane, since it was a “major change to the scope of the bill” and Senate President Amy Sinclair, R-Allerton, agreed and the amendment was scrapped.
On the ‘crappy’ bill
Sen. Mike Klimesh, R-Spillville, asked Sen. Kevin Alons, R-Salix, about some of the issues he had with the bill, including multiple definitions of a common carrier and an “elevated standard” for judicial review that he said would “bog the system down.”
Klimesh also noted a lack of specificity in some of the language of the bill, like the section expanding intervenors in utility board cases that does not specify that members of the general assembly, city or county officials must be in Iowa.
“I mean is that the intention really, to bog this system down with interveners from any place or anywhere, any elected official, any city council, county official, or any resident with plausible interest in the proceedings?” Klimesh said.
Following the decision, Rep. Charley Thomson, R-Charles City, said the arguments brought up on the Senate floor about the bill providing for out-of-state individuals to intervene with the Iowa permitting process were incorrect, and “it reflects a misunderstanding of the IUC system and administrative law.”
He said the process of intervention only gives individuals the right to file motions and get copies of meetings by email.
“It’s not an invitation to sue,” Thomson said. “And there is a limitation on there, that you have to have some connection with what’s going on. It’s absurd to say that we’re opening the process up to endless litigation.”
Klimesh asked on the floor how the insurance clauses of the bill would be determined.
He said the bill, as written, would make it more difficult for all pipeline projects in the future, tie up “critical infrastructure projects” in court and pass costs onto consumers who would have increased utility costs.
Klimesh said in the future, companies that want to build pipelines in the state would be deterred by the requirements in the bill that would be costly.
Alons said much of the language was a “codification” of what is already in the IUC rules.
Klimesh said the bill would lead to increasing costs on energy for Iowans.
“Cost drivers, cost increases — they’re based off decisions we make here in this chamber,” Klimesh said. “This is one of those decisions that is going to affect pipeline companies, again, far beyond CO2 pipeline companies, and places an onerous burden on them to ascertain and achieve this coverage.”
Klimesh also worried that enactment language in the bill would open the door to lawsuits from Iowans who have already signed an easement contract with the state when Summit is no longer able to uphold that contract without eminent domain to complete the project.
“I’m concerned about putting the state of Iowa and our taxpayers at a legal risk,” Klimesh said.
“This bill sets up a whole avalanche of potential bad policy. While we were trying to squash a fly, we took a nuclear bomb to it.”
Taylor said senators tried to swap HF 639 for a different version, via the Democrats’ amendment, but “it was rejected out of hand.”
“So it makes me wonder if it wasn’t really just any opposition to tampering with the Summit pipeline, rather than the particulars of 639,” Taylor said.
Taylor said the group of GOP senators who stepped forward to push for a debate on this faced criticism for it, but Taylor said he was standing for Republican values and the motto of Iowa.
Senators gather while at ease on Monday between discussions on the bill impacting eminent domain. From top of the circle: Sen. Dennis Guth, Sen. Kevin Alons, Sen. Sandy Salmon, Sen. Jeff Taylor, Sen. Mark Lofgren, Sen. Dave Rowley, Sen. Cherielynn Westrich, Sen. Dave Sires, Sen. Doug Campbell. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
“When it says our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain, there’s not an asterisk there,” he said. “It doesn’t say unless we’re threatened by a billion dollar lawsuit.”
Sen. Mike Zimmer, D-DeWitt, said he was “flummoxed” that the Democrat’s amendment was turned down, because it made the argument “really simple.”
“You can be for the pipeline, you can be for ethanol production, you can be for union workers putting that pipeline together, and say, ‘we can do this without having to use eminent domain,’” Zimmer said.
Klimesh said when he met with the 12 senators who pushed for a debate on the bill, he offered to work with them and to amend the bill to resemble HF 943, but the group declined.
“In that week’s time, we could have sat around and crafted probably a much better piece of legislation,” Klimesh said.
Sen. Bill Dotzler, D-Waterloo, said “hogwash” and that there was an opportunity for a cleaner bill on the floor and the majority chose to ignore it.
Sen. Tony Bisignano, D-Des Moines, criticized the majority party for not working on the bill sooner.
“Where have you been? This bill didn’t start a week ago … we’ve had years,” Bisignano said.
Sen. Dan Zumbach, R-Ryan, said “emotions got ahead of reality” on the issue and as a result, the body is stuck with “horrible” legislation.
“This bill is about killing a project, not about constitutionality, not about property rights — we missed that boat, folks,” Zumbach said. “Had it laid out there in front of us and we were too stubborn to listen to the actual words.”
Bousselot said in his closing comments on the bill that everyone will leave the Capitol Monday claiming they “voted to protect private property rights” because everyone either voted for his amendment, or for the bill.
“I hope we have a plan for infrastructure, to grow our state, for the jobs that are going to be harder to build, for the farmers that produce the wealth and the great crops and commodities that we rely on,” Bousselot said.
The bill advanced from the Senate and will now go to Gov. Kim Reynolds for final approval. Reynolds has not said publicly whether she would sign or veto it. Summit Carbon Solutions did not respond to a request for comment.
Reactions
Kathy Stockdale, a landowner from Iowa Falls, said she was happy to see the bill pass and was “extremely proud” of the 12 GOP senators who took a stand to force the legislation to come to a vote. At the same time, Stockdale said she was “deeply upset” as a Republican, with Senate leadership, and that she and many landowners would have preferred to see House File 943 pass.
“It doesn’t protect our private property rights,” she said.
However, she said the bill passed does provide some benefits to landowners: “It helps us in the IUC hearings. It does provide insurance for us. … It defines what a common carrier is, just like in South Dakota.”
While the measure passed the Senate, she said she is not sure it will be signed by Reynolds.
Thomson and Holt, who led the legislation in the House, hugged and shook hands with activists and landowners outside the Senate chambers after the bill’s passage.
Holt said Bousselot talking about being supportive of property rights was “disrespectful” considering his role in similar bills stalling in the Senate in recent sessions.
“Everybody that’s followed this knows that it has been Senator Bousselot, who formerly worked for Summit, who killed these pieces of legislation over and over again,” Holt said. “It’s so disingenuous and so disrespectful treating the citizens of Iowa like fools, so it was not a proud moment for me as a Republican.”
Holt said the bill’s Senate passage Monday was because of landowners and supporters who worked for years to push lawmakers to vote on the bill. He also credited House Republicans for introducing and passing measures in response to these calls in recent legislative sessions.
“We listened to the people of Iowa, and that is why this finally got done,” Holt said. “That is why the governor needs to sign it just as soon as possible.”
Robin Opsahl contributed to this report.
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