Iowa
Iowa Senate Republicans have the better eminent-domain bill | Opinion
Better protection for property rights is a worthy goal. But legislators shouldn’t do it at the expense of telling businesses they’ll always have to be wary of Iowa pulling the rug from under them.
New New battle lines are being drawn at the Iowa Statehouse in the debate over eminent domain for a carbon dioxide pipeline. For opponents of the permit Summit Carbon Solutions received to seize land if necessary, competing pieces of legislation imply a question that could split their unlikely alliances: Is the goal merely to ensure that no property owner has their land taken involuntarily, or is it to sink Summit’s project entirely?
Iowans have numerous reasons to be skeptical about the long-term effects of a Summit pipeline. But singling out the company and its precise vision is unfair. The eminent-domain bills moving through both chambers of the Legislature have flaws, but lawmakers and the governor should settle on something closer to Senate Republicans’ proposal.
Ag groups say killing the pipeline means a farm crisis
The main argument for the pipeline, reiterated by farm groups and lawmakers on Jan. 21, is that a pipeline that carries and buries waste from biofuel production will improve sustainability measurements for Iowa corn. Without that tool, advocates say, Iowa farmers won’t be able to find markets and a new “farm crisis” looms.
The talk about sustainable aviation fuel, carbon capture tax credits and emerging markets is, unfortunately, almost all about dollars. Missing from five years of carbon-pipeline debate has been compelling evidence that the environmental benefits from the pipeline can help justify the harms to water and health that Iowa’s corn-ethanol obsession has helped to perpetuate. Carbon capture proponents have not inspired confidence that the carbon intensity scores they seek to change for ethanol plants are much more than a number.
Nevertheless, in 2024 the Iowa Utilities Board ruled that Summit’s pipeline proposal would “promote the public convenience and necessity,” granting it the right to seize land from property owners to bury the pipeline in places where the company and landowners could not reach a voluntary agreement. Whether that right of eminent domain is appropriate has been the center of years of debate at the Statehouse. Groups that opposed carbon pipelines on environmental grounds found bedfellows in the property rights advocates. But every legislative attempt to thwart Summit has failed, including when Gov. Kim Reynolds vetoed bipartisan eminent-domain restrictions in 2025.
The House and Senate are advancing starkly different eminent proposals early in 2026. House File 2104 simply disallows eminent domain in connection with carbon pipelines. Senate File 2067 allows companies to change their planned routes to seek more voluntary easements, and Senate File 2069 would tax pipelines, with the proceeds going to Iowa’s Taxpayer Relief Fund.
Summit says the House bill, which lawmakers approved 64-28 on Jan. 21, would kill their project. The Senate bills are not as far along. Supporters of the House bill point out that the Senate measures do not, in the end, restrict Summit or other companies from eventually invoking eminent domain to proceed.
Pulling out the rug at this point would be too damaging
That’s the stage for the conflict over three general paths:
- Let the pipeline proceed as state regulators approved, with the ability to seize land.
- Stop the project in its tracks.
- Split the difference by letting the pipeline be built, but with less room for seizures.
The second option might have more appeal if policymakers were working against a blank slate. But it’s a serious matter to change the rules retroactively in a way that ruins a company’s Iowa investment. It’s more than fair for landowners to grumble that they futilely asked for eminent-domain protections for years before Summit received a regulatory thumbs-up. Still, the fact is that the company succeeded in arguing for that approval. Allowing the pipeline might be the wrong move – and if Summit ultimately manages to proceed without land seizures, at least some environmental groups would see that as a failure and not a win-win. But it would be even worse to demonstrate to prospective entrepreneurs that state leaders are willing to blow up economic development after years and hundreds of millions of dollars of preliminary investment.
Leaving things alone would permanently discard the argument that Summit’s situation differs significantly from what happens when land is needed for conventional infrastructure such as roads, electrical transmission or sewers. The “public convenience and necessity” resulting a carbon pipeline, such as benefits for the agriculture sector, is less direct and more speculative. The fervor to reject Summit’s condemnation rights is plain.
Something like the Senate bills is the best path forward. The legislation’s chief insight is that Summit’s profit potential from lucrative federal carbon tax credits should afford it the ability to spend considerably more money jumping through Iowa hoops and paying Iowa taxes. It’s also true that the distinction between banning eminent domain and merely providing alternatives to eminent domain is important. Whatever lawmakers ultimately pass should impose more obstacles before the company could seek to condemn land; the original Senate Bill 2067 doesn’t go far enough.
Lawmakers also have to consider Reynolds, who was an early supporter of carbon capture. It’s at best unclear whether any bill legislators pass could reach the two-thirds support in both chambers necessary to override any veto from the governor. Her veto message in 2025 hinted that she could support more narrowly tailored eminent-domain legislation; she has said little this year about her expectations.
Better protection for property rights is a worthy goal for the Legislature. But legislators shouldn’t do it at the expense of telling businesses that they’ll always have to be wary of Iowa pulling the rug out from under them.
Lucas Grundmeier, on behalf of the Register’s editorial board
This editorial is the opinion of the Des Moines Register’s editorial board: Rachel Stassen-Berger, executive editor; Lucas Grundmeier, opinion editor; and Richard Doak and Rox Laird, editorial board members.