Is the NH3 pipeline going through one of my farms public or private? It is privately owned but serves the need of providing farmers fertilizer.

Wasn’t the Dakota Access pipeline a private project? But we all need oil or what it does for us.

How about powerlines? Warren Buffett’s utility company owns a share of them but the public needs electricity. Railroads, owned by Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, at one time laid down track on right of way gained with use of eminent domain. If there is “public interest” then there is a “public use.”

The Kelo legal ruling some refer to defining use of eminent domain was an instance like Trump Hotels attempting to acquire neighboring property. That is private and should not be available. The Summit CO2 pipeline is a partnership between ethanol plants and Summit to originate, transport and sequester CO2 in North Dakota. This carbon sink reduces the carbon score of the ethanol that these plants produce so that it qualifies for use as sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) feedstock. Currently SAF in the U.S is being made only from imported Brazilian ethanol, which has the required carbon score. There is a tremendous market for SAF, but our ethanol doesn’t currently qualify as low carbon.

Our federal government sees enough value in this to authorize carbon credits for financial incentive included in the Big Beautiful Bill. There are 57 ethanol plants looking to hook on. They say that as a result of completion of the pipeline that they will expand their ethanol production capacity by 25% to 100%, depending on the individual plant. This would boost ethanol production of these plants from 5.7 billion to an estimate of as much as 7.4 billion gallons. That would boost demand for corn by 600 million bushels needed to process into the additional ethanol. This would improve both the price and basis for corn, just as we have seen happen from the initial development of the ethanol industry.

Everyone benefits. Landowners can get paid one heck of a good price for voluntary easements, the highest ever offered by similar projects in history for a pipeline easement, to avoid the eminent domain process. Ethanol plants make money from higher valued CO2 … they pay farmers more, needing more corn. This makes us less vulnerable to tariffs and trade wars, as well as less need for taxpayer subsidies to support farm incomes. This also boosts DDG production for livestock producers. It increases the local tax base, improving net farm income, which in turn supports state tax revenues.

Governor Kim Reynolds sees the impact on the state budget of reduced net farm income worsening and realizes that this project is necessary as a source of future state revenue. More ethanol means lower fuel prices for consumers. The farm economy is struggling. Deere is no longer selling farm equipment and laying off workers, and the CO2 pipeline is the single most value-added enterprise out there that can improve our corn market and ag economy. Our agronomic productivity exceeds demand growth and CO2 pipelines and SAF is the opportunity for adding demand to utilize our supply. I cannot think of anything that is more in the public interest of the Iowa economy than CO2 pipelines and SAF demand for the low carbon ethanol we would then produce.

As we deal with tariffs and low farm prices, what else is going to save this? The reason that the governor did not respond to this “issue” during her term is that she supported the CO2 pipelines and lamented privately that they could not get built fast enough. She sees the bigger picture that many are not, yet was cognizant of the loud opposition, believing the process in place would work.

Our current IUB permitting process, set by precedent, was that when a project achieved voluntary easements of 70 to 75%, then they could expect IUB approval. Summit followed that process and received said approval. They paid far more for voluntary easements than any similar project ever has in Iowa history. Landowners were receiving or passing up six figure-90% tax free payments for one-quarter mile easements which to the non-biased would appear to be winning a lottery.

Pipeline safety was brought up as an issue. Techology has improved safety. Last winter I got a phone call from the NH3 pipeline owner of the pipeline crossing one of our farms. They had run a “pig” monitoring device through the pipe, had discovered a weak spot, and this spring dug it up, repaired it and paid us for crop damage. That is how this works. CO2 is considered hazardous but NH3 is much more so. There has been little to no impact from this pipeline on our crops.

My private property rights have not been abused. Eminent domain exists as a protection of private property rights setting limits and restrictions on how the public interest balances with property rights. Eminent domain is as much leverage for landowners to use to get a fair price for voluntary easements as it is a threat to them. Companies need to reach the IUB threshold for approval so they have to pay up to get a necessary number of voluntary easements to get IUB permit approval. HF 639 unbalances this.

My bet would be that Randy Feenstra will be our next governor. He supported the CO2 pipeline in his last campaign because, like Reynolds, he gets the big picture of what is in the best interest of the farm economy and the state. Opposition is a loud minority, only looking out for themselves, backed by the Sierra Club which doesn’t want us to grow corn.

My family signed an easement with Summit after negotiation that satisfied all of our concerns relative to pipeline issues. Regardless of whether or not this pipe is ever buried on our farms, we get to keep it. These were all money up-front payments for easements that are non-refundable.

So then … having been paid, why would I care if the pipeline gets buried or not? Because we need demand for our corn. Without the value-added benefit of sequestering CO2 reducing the carbon score of ethanol to qualify as SAF feedstock, the ag economy will miss a huge economic opportunity that farmers and the state cannot afford to miss.