Iowa property owners who oppose having the proposed Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline on their land are asking state regulators to pause the review of plans to expand the route.
Jess Mazour of the Sierra Club’s Iowa chapter said a new South Dakota law banning Summit from using eminent domain in that state to seize land for the project is a game changer.
“Too much has changed with Summit’s project to move forward with these hearings. They need to pause it and really stop it all together until Summit figures out what its next step is,” she said during a rally at the Iowa Capitol Tuesday.
Mazour and several dozen people delivered petitions to the Iowa Utilities Board Tuesday afternoon. Dennis King, a Clay County farmer, said the proposed pipeline route runs through four of his farms.
“South Dakota has shown us that this pipeline can be stopped,” King said, as the crowd in the Iowa Capitol rotunda cheered and waved signs. “Yay South Dakota. I agree.”
Robert Nazario, a Republican from Iowa Falls who ran for a seat in the Iowa House last year, said pipeline opponents need to defeat Iowa lawmakers who support the project — just as South Dakotans fighting the pipeline did.
“These government gangsters in Iowa have got to be voted out,” he said. “South Dakota has made it known under God, we the people rule.”
At least 14 Republican legislators in South Dakota were defeated by Republican challengers last year in races where the pipeline was a major issue. Marva Schuldt of Readlyn said the “phase two” extension of Summit’s pipeline route is within 450 feet of her farm in Bremer County. She urged people to attend a town hall meeting with U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley next week.
“I want all of you to come to Hampton, Iowa, and show him how many people are against this,” she said. “We have to email him, we have to call him and Joni Ernst both and tell them that we do not want this pipeline.”
The pipeline project is financed, in large part, with federal tax credits for carbon sequestration. Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, says the pipeline will address the demand for low carbon fuels — and its demise would be a damper on corn prices for Iowa farmers.
The Iowa House has passed several bills to regulate carbon pipelines over the past four years. All of those bills have stalled in the Iowa Senate. This year, several bills addressing pipeline related issues are pending in the Iowa House.