I did participate in a demonstration, so to speak, at the Iowa State Capitol. I joined ethanol and CO2 pipeline supporters who were lobbying against an Iowa House Bill that would bar use of eminent domain for virtually anything. That was overkill. It was no surprise that the bill passed in the House, however it is not going further from there and is like the bill that Gov. Reynolds vetoed last session. There was a strong show of opposition from the ethanol industry to the bill personified in the group I joined at the Capitol. House members who voted for this bill should not receive the endorsement of the Iowa Corn Growers Association or Iowa Farm Bureau Federation next election.

The Iowa Legislature is dealing with eminent domain. There is at least one in every bushel, so you will not be able to plan a route for a pipeline, road or powerline etc., that doesn’t encounter someone who opposes selling an easement. Landowners should be compensated for use of their property and eminent domain is the mechanism that does that. No one likes it. I do not think that the valuation was often fair which the landowner has to weigh against their selling an easement. Being on the route chosen for the Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline was in my experience like winning the lottery.

I cannot admit to understanding the opposition. Easement compensation that we accepted so-far eclipsed anything comparable to eminent domain, that it did not even enter our minds as relevant. Historically, values set by the eminent domain process were based on farmland values. The easement compensation paid by Summit Carbon Solutions was based upon the value of the use so was a multiple of that. This was something that I had long argued for. So why did I drive to Des Moines to support it? Because we need the corn demand that it will generate.

Our 500 acres of corn in Clay County this year yielded 270 bushels per acre. That was a record yield for us, representing the rising national corn yield that USDA says produced over 17 billion bushels of corn in 2025. My son tells me that our 2026 cost of production is $4.58 a bushel. You may note that the price of cash corn is not that high and with the projected carryover, the corn price could fall below $4 this year. When I started farming over 50 years ago, my average corn yield was not much more than half our 2025 yield. The trendline for corn yields continues to climb, which means that in order to be profitable we need to grow demand. This has been a challenge all my career as a market analyst and market maker. I did not only spend effort growing more corn, I worked with the industry to grow more demand. Unless Robert F. Kennedy decides that people need to eat four meals per day we are limited as to the domestic growth of meat production. Livestock production was not enough to support corn market profitability so I got involved in the organization and promotion of the ethanol industry. That industry now utilizes over 5.6 billion bushels of corn annually and became the third leg under the stool that corn demand along with feed demand and exports sits upon. Ethanol production is the most successful creation of wealth for the farm community that I have seen develop in my lifetime. As long as our corn productivity increases, we need to grow demand. Where are we at with that today?

President Donald Trump said that we would go through a period of pain, but that his new trade deals would deliver a gain. We could buy new tractors and more land. Personally, I never believed that and I do not think that is going to happen. We are not seeing ag commodity export growth result from his trade agenda. The problem with exports is that we do not control them. Buyers do. Geopolitics interferes. We also have competitors, and our track record is that we are losing market share to them. I do not see the switches that we can throw that will change that. I do not think that we are the world’s first choice to buy from. So that leaves us with biofuel as the remaining fruit that can be harvested to fill the need for demand and profit generation … that we can control and manage.

There are a number of different ways in which to grow biofuel demand, but the greatest opportunity with the most potential is low-carbon ethanol. Brazil produces low-carbon ethanol. which is preferred by most export buyers and required as Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) feedstock. The potential market for SAF is large enough to grow ethanol demand for some time to come. U.S. ethanol plants have lowered their carbon intensity scores since inception, but the way at scale to qualify as low-carbon ethanol requires CO2 sequestration. The ethanol industry in Nebraska has brought CO2 sequestration on line with the Tall Grass CO2 pipeline which 70% of Nebraska ethanol plants have hooked onto. That means that Nebraska has taken the lead as the low carbon ethanol producer in the U.S.

Plants with their CO2 sequestered can add enormous value. Iowa plants that intend to sequester CO2 through the Summit pipeline have plans to immediately expand production by 25% to 100%. This means they need more corn, which means improved prices and basis levels. This would be the equivalent of ethanol industry 2.0 for its impact on corn demand, prices and basis. We have seen this once before with ethanol industry 1.0, so we know what the result will be.

CO2 pipeline critics have cited opposition to use of eminent domain as their primary reason for opposing the industry. Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Klimesh introduced SF 2067, a bill which would solve the eminent domain issue for reasonable people. Instead of the IUB approving a specific route for pipelines, they instead designate a corridor of five miles to either side of the route that the pipeline can deviate from in order to find landowners willing to sell an easement. Summit Carbon has over 74% of the easements needed now and with this much latitude within a corridor, the need for use of eminent domain to find a path forward becomes unlikely. The bill needs to be approved by the legislature while we still have a governor that will sign it. This is a Solomon wisdom-like solution to a vexing problem. Of course, if you don’t want corn to be profitable, prefer state budgets to remain unbalanced and are bothered in general by progress, a reasonable solution such as provided by SF 2067 may not change your mind. As I said, there are a few in every bushel — more than a few in the Iowa House.