New requirements for the company that has a permit to build a carbon pipeline and for the state regulators that granted the permit have cleared initial review in the Iowa House.
One bill would require Summit Carbon Solutions to show it has enough insurance to cover all damages from a pipeline rupture. Cynthia Hansen’s family owns land in Shelby County that’s in the pipeline’s path. “We already have our letter from our insurance company saying that we cannot get liability insurance on this piece of ground if this pipeline goes through because (liquified carbon) is considered a pollutant, so that puts us at great risk if the pipeline would rupture,” Hansen said early this morning at a subcommittee hearing on the bill. “I mean, we would go bankrupt.”
Representative Steven Holt, a Republican from Denison who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the cost and liability if there’s a rupture would hit property owners as well as local governments who’d have to respond to the disaster.
“It is the local county supervisors, law enforcement, EMT personnel, fire fighters that will be responsible for the safety of their citizens,” Holt said, “and it also appears that counties will be left holding the bag, (along with) landowners, should something go wrong.”
In a written statement provided to Radio Iowa, a spokesperson for Summit Carbon Solutions said in order to secure its pipeline permit, the company was required to have at least a $100 million insurance policy and the ability to compensate landowners for damages from construction.
The other bill would require members of the Iowa Utilities Commission to attend the commission’s hearings and informational meetings. Holt said House Speaker Pat Grassley attended a public meeting scheduled by the agency, but no one from the commission was there to hear comments from the public.
“This was confirmed for me when we had an informational meeting in Holstein, in Ida County. I was there. No commissioners were there,” Holt said. “Unfortunately, this seems to fit the pattern of arrogance toward property owners that has been on display throughout this entire process by the Iowa Utilities Commission when the leadership changed.”
In April of 2023, Governor Kim Reynolds replaced the commission’s chairman and appointed another new member to the three-person panel Jessica Mazour, conservation program manager for the Sierra Club’s Iowa chapter, said the new commissioners have been disrespectful toward property owners who object to having the pipeline on their land.
“Not showing up to meetings, not listening — I mean we’re talking about people who put their lives on hold for four years to protect their property from a company that’s coming in to take their land, endanger their families,” Mazour said during this morning’s subcommittee hearing, “and they don’t even have the ability or the care to show up and listen to them.”
Peg Rasmussen owns land in Montgomery County where Summit Carbon Solutions plans to extend its pipeline during phase two of the project. She told lawmakers one commission member was at the informational meeting she attended. “I’m sure that there was bias in terms of how they interpreted the meeting,” Rasmussen said, “so having multiple ears there hearing could related to better understand what the public really was saying.”
Similar bills have been filed in the Iowa Senate, but no subcommittee hearings on either senate bill have been scheduled.
Iowa Utilities Commission spokesman Don Tormey released the following statement to Radio Iowa: “IUC Commissioners do attend various public information meetings and hearings scheduled by the IUC. Iowa Code section 479B.4, as well as similar provisions for other pipeline projects and electric transmission line projects, requires a Commissioner or a person designated by the Commission to attend an informational meeting. In the IUC electronic filing system you can review the informational meeting checklists filed in each of these types of dockets to learn the names of the IUC staff that were present at every informational meeting held. There is always a team of IUC staff present and a staff member or Commissioner presiding over the meeting. Informational meetings are for the purpose of providing information to landowners and the public prior to allowing the company to negotiate with landowners. The Commissioners cannot consider any information they receive at an informational meeting when deciding the case because that information is not evidence in the record. This point is made clear to meeting attendees as a standard part of all informational meeting presentations.
“In regard to hearings, the Commissioners most often preside; however, Iowa Administrative Code 199—7.3(17A,476) and Iowa Code section 17A.11 addresses the authority to appoint a presiding officer. Rule 7.3 states in part: “Presiding officers may be designated by the commission to preside over contested cases or other proceedings and conduct hearings.'”