Pipeline opponents decry handling of Summit hearing schedule – Iowa Capital Dispatch

A tentative plan announced Wednesday by state regulators to extend a carbon dioxide pipeline hearing into next week was too hastily arranged and might affect landowners’ ability to participate, according to an attorney who represents more than 100 of them.

“It’s just preposterous to just jerk us around day after day, week after week, thinking we should just sit here and take it,” Jorde said at an evidentiary hearing for Summit Carbon Solutions, which is in its sixth week.

Jorde has repeatedly lamented the lack of a rough schedule for the hearing so that he can arrange for his witnesses — some of whom don’t live in Iowa — to be present at the hearing in Fort Dodge.

The Iowa Utilities Board publishes a weekly schedule with daily updates. It waited until about two weeks ago to reveal that it had reserved the hearing venue through the end of the month and hoped to finish by then.

Board chairperson Erik Helland said Wednesday it was initially difficult to predict how long the hearing would last and insinuated that excessive and unnecessary questioning of witnesses has delayed the process.

Summit wants to build a five-state pipeline system to transport captured carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to North Dakota for underground sequestration.

Helland began Wednesday’s proceedings by announcing that the board had reserved the venue for an additional week. He said the hearing would conclude this week after Thursday’s testimony, resume Monday morning and go for up to five days that week.

The plan was met with a chorus of criticism.

“This entire process is tainted, and it continues to be tainted by this type of last-second scheduling,” Jorde said.

He initially said none of his more than 50 clients who would still need to testify are available next week. Jorde also criticized the board for the timing of the hearing, which has leaked into harvest season and might limit the potential for farmers to participate.

Consumer Advocate Lanny Zieman agreed that the “lack of transparency of the schedule was challenging for all the parties.”

A Summit attorney later suggested that Jorde’s clients be allowed to testify remotely next week via video conferencing — which the board has attempted to limit to rare instances.

That attorney also said Summit is willing to waive its cross examinations of witnesses who are unable to testify by the end of next week to potentially eliminate the need for them to testify. Several people rejected that idea.

“I would not waive the right to question landowner witnesses,” said Wally Taylor, an attorney for the Sierra Club of Iowa.

The issue is set to be discussed further on Thursday.

Wednesday’s testimony mostly featured landowners who are subject to eminent domain requests, along with state Rep. Charley Thomson, R-Charles City, who has worried that Summit’s permit process in Iowa has been rushed.

“There have been a number of actions by the board and surrounding the board — it’s the only way I know how to phrase it — that suggests that Summit has had an undue influence on the conduct of these hearings,” he said.

Elected officials have rejected claims that they have exercised undue influence to aid Summit’s permit requests.