To the editor:

In August of 2021, 15,000 Iowa landowners received certified letters from Summit Carbon Solutions informing us that our property could potentially be on the route of its CO2 pipeline. We were told the project would be operational by 2024.

Obviously, things did not go as planned, because five years later not one foot of pipeline is in the ground on Summit’s 2500-mile route. The massive project is years behind schedule, and Summit has no one to blame but itself.

Ironically, its CO2 pipeline could be up and running by now if not for the company’s flawed business plan. Summit wrongfully assumed it could threaten and intimidate Iowa’s landowners into signing easements “voluntarily.” If not, the company thought it could easily use eminent domain to take our land.

Early on, out-of-state land agents swarmed into Iowa acting like thugs. Summit knows this. It knows its approach to easement negotiations was appalling. This is evidenced by a recent follow-up letter from the new CEO telling us Summit wants to “create a new chapter” and “act with integrity.”

Summit did not expect to waste years dealing with hundreds of disrespected landowners who pushed back against the illicit use of eminent domain for a project that is not a utility and serves no public purpose, convenience or necessity.

This legislative session is ending with the important issue of property rights at a stalemate. In January, the House passed HF2104, a one-sentence bill that prohibits the use of eminent domain to acquire land for carbon oxide pipelines. It does not prohibit CO2 pipelines in Iowa, and it does not affect any other type of hazardous liquid pipelines.

However, our bill is stalled in the Senate where pages of proposed amendments were added and the ban on eminent domain was deleted. HF2104, if passed as amended, would allow the use of eminent domain for CO2 pipelines. The bill has not been brought to the Senate floor, and the clock is ticking.

Landowners, legislators, and company executives are frustrated, but the way forward is simple. The Senate must pass HF2104 in its original form, and Gov. Kim Reynolds needs to sign it. This will offer Summit an off-ramp from wasting more time with legislation and litigation.

Summit can seek voluntary easements to build the pipeline — as it should have done in the beginning. It can prove promised integrity by accepting uninterested landowners’ right to say no and approaching interested neighbors as prospective business partners with honesty and respect.

If HF2104 is passed in its original form as sent from the House to the Senate, eminent domain cannot be used as a threat in easement negotiations. Legislators will have solved the eminent domain problem. Summit will be able to move forward and build the pipeline with all voluntary easements. Landowners will be free of the specter of eminent domain that has haunted them for five years. Protecting property rights will be a win-win for Iowa.

Bonnie Ewoldt

Milford