Companies would no longer be able to use eminent domain to appropriate privately owned land for carbon pipeline projects under a bill approved by the Iowa House on Wednesday. HF 2104 passed with bipartisan support, 64-28. Ten of the House’s 33 Democrats joined 54 of the chamber’s 67 Republicans in voting for the bill.
“I think we all want economic development, but not at the expense of the constitutionally protected rights of our fellow citizens,” Rep. Steve Holt, a Republican from Denison and the floor manager for HF 2104, said during the floor debate. “Those who want the pipeline, they can sign voluntary easements. Those who do not, have the constitutionally protected right to refuse, and the government has no right in this case to intervene.”
Last year, the House passed a bill that would have sharply restricted the use of eminent domain for CO2 pipelines. The 2025 bill, HF 639, would have changed definitions in state law to limit the ability of private companies to use eminent domain for projects that benefit private interests rather than the general public. It also increased the amount of liability insurance hazardous liquid pipelines are required to carry, and limited CO2 pipelines to one nonrenewable permit that expires after 25 years.
Bills to prohibit or restrict eminent domain for hazardous liquid pipeline projects, and specifically Summit Carbon Solutions’ CO2 pipeline project, have had support in the House for years, but faced opposition from Republican leaders in the Iowa Senate. HF 639 faced that opposition, too.
At first it appeared that Senate leaders would prevent the bill from coming to a vote. But after a group of 12 Republican senators declared they would not vote on the pending budget bill, effectively preventing its passage, until the pipeline bill was brought to the Senate floor for debate and a possible vote. Senate leaders backed down, the debate happened and so did the vote. HF 639 passed the Senate, 27-22.
Gov. Reynolds vetoed the bill.
“Kim Reynolds has failed the state of Iowa,” Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, the Cedar County Republican, told Radio Iowa after the veto. “Kim Reynolds has soiled her legacy and her legacy is now spitting in the face of landowners and being Bruce Rastetter’s errand girl.”
Rastetter is a dominant figure in Iowa agribusiness. He’s a major donor to the Iowa Republicans and a top donor to Reynolds, just as he was to Terry Branstad. Rastetter is also the founder of Summit Carbon Solutions, the company building a 2,500-mile-long pipeline across five states to transport carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to an underground storage facility in North Dakota.
The Iowa Utilities Commission granted the project eminent domain rights in June 2024, with the proviso that the project cannot begin construction until it has permits in North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota. The company has not yet received the necessary permit in South Dakota.
Five years ago, three companies were pursuing CO2 pipeline projects in Iowa. Summit is the only one is still trying to build a pipeline. The company says it has secured the cooperation of the owners of 75 percent of the land in Iowa it needs for its project, and the company wants to use eminent domain to force the remaining owners to sell the property it requires. But a group of landowners along the pipeline’s route in western Iowa have mounted a determined effort to prevent Summit from using eminent domain to force the sale of their property for as long as the company has been pushing for that authority.
Members of the group say they are worried about the impact of pipeline construction and maintenance on their farmland, the possibility of it lowering property values and potential damage from leaks or explosions, and they resist the idea that a private company should be able to use a government power like eminent domain just to generate profits for itself and other private companies. “No eminent domain for private gain,” has been a rallying cry for the group.
After Reynolds vetoed HF 639, the Iowa House took the very rare step of approving a special session of the legislature to override the governor’s veto. It would have been the first such special session since 2006, when the legislature overrode Gov. Tom Vilsack’s veto of a bill placing new restrictions on the use of eminent domain.
Opposition to overriding the governor’s veto from Senate Republican leaders stopped the special session from happening last year.
One of the reasons for killing HF 639 Reynolds gave in her veto message was that the bill was “too broad.” That objection won’t apply to the bill the House approved Wednesday.
HF 2104 is a very short bill, which states, “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a person shall not exercise the power of eminent domain to acquire right-of-way for, construct, or operate a pipeline for the primary purpose of transporting carbon oxide.” It also contains a provision that would make it take effect immediately, instead of on July 1, as most bills do.
HF 2104 is modeled after a bill signed into law by South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden, a Republican, in March. That bill passed the Republican-controlled South Dakota legislature in response to concerns about Summit’s plans to use eminent domain to seize property from landowners along the South Dakota section of its CO2 pipeline project.
Reacting to Rhoden’s approval of the bill, Summit issued a statement complaining the new prohibition on the use of eminent domain “changed the rules in the middle of the game.” Responding to a question from the news site South Dakota Searchlight about whether it would sue over the new law, Summit replied, “all options are on the table but we remain focused on working with stakeholders to support the long-term success of the ethanol industry and support the president’s goals of American energy dominance.”
While Reynolds opposed HF 639, in part, because it was too broad, some of the opponents to HF 2104 objected to its narrow focus.
Rep. Brian Lohse, a Republican from Bondurant, said the bill would violate both the U.S. Constitution and the Iowa Constitution by treating carbon pipelines differently than other pipelines transporting hazardous materials.
“If we’re going to have regulatory schemes regulating underground pipelines, they have to be applied equally under the equal protection clauses of these constitutions,” Lohse said, during the House debate.
Summit, of course, opposes HF 2104, as do lobbyists representing the state’s ethanol industry, which argues that the CO2 pipeline project, and the ability to use eminent domain to complete it, is necessary to ensure the future of the ethanol production in Iowa, by opening up new market for industry. And since approximately 60 percent of the corn produced in Iowa is used to produce ethanol, agribusiness lobbyists also support the pipeline and oppose HF 2104.
“This bill would effectively block carbon dioxide pipeline projects and cut off access to new and emerging markets for ethanol and agriculture,” a spokesperson for Summit said in a statement. “At a time when corn prices are already under pressure, rural communities need policies that expand opportunity and investment — not ones that shut the door on future markets.”
Some of the bill’s opponents in the House also argued that Summit’s pipeline is needed to secure the economic future of the state.
“Having better markets for our products is not only in my family’s best interest, it’s my neighbor’s best interest, it’s in a farmer in southwest Iowa’s best interest,” Republican Rep. Chad Ingels said. “… It’s in the best interest of our state to have young people willing to come back and farm.”
Holt pushed back against the economic development arguments.
“The precedent we will set if we allow private property to be seized for a private economic development project will reverberate for decades to come, and could render property rights safeguards in our constitution meaningless for our children and our children’s children,” he said.
HF 2104 faces an uncertain fate in the Iowa Senate. Senate Majority Leader Mike Klimesh, a Republican from Spillville, introduced a bill on Tuesday he says will address landowners’ concerns over Summit’s CO2 pipeline, while allowing the project to be completed.
SF 2067 would create five-mile-wide corridors on either side of the approved route of a pipeline transporting hazardous liquid material. If a landowner refuses to allow the pipeline access to their property, the company could then negotiate with other property owners within the corridors to use their land for the pipeline. A company would still be able to use eminent domain along the approved route with approval of the Iowa Utilities Commission, if it has been unable to secure access within the corridors.
Klimesh said on Tuesday his bill “can get us to the point where we all but eliminate the need for utilizing eminent domain for carbon capture pipelines or any other hazardous liquid pipelines, while still recognizing the fact that Iowa needs to have investment in linear infrastructure, but also recognizing the importance of landowner rights.”
Gov. Reynolds has not made any public statement about either the House or Senate bills. The governor did not mention eminent domain or the Summit pipeline in her Condition of the State Address earlier this month, even though it was already known this would be a major topic in this year’s legislative session.
