Meeting Public Comments

Marta Burkgren

Please Vote No on Senate File 2067 or Amend it to Protect Property RightsIf you feel you must vote for Senate File 2067, it must be amended to state that eminent domain cannot be used for a CO2 pipeline. No exceptions. I am a landowner impacted by Phase 1 of the Summit Carbon Pipeline. I can tell you from personal experience that when you give a company exceptions as broad and numerous as the ones outlined in this bill, they will use it. I repeatedly told their land agents that I was not going to sell them an easement, and they should look for another route. I was repeatedly told that they couldnt go another way because it would require too many curves or corners in the pipe. They threatened me with eminent domain before they ever had a permit, and I quote You might as well settle now because we are going to use eminent domain to take your property if you dont. One of the exceptions is economic infeasibility. A 2023 article in Oil and Gas Journal states that it costs $2 million dollars per mile of additional pipeline. I am sure it is more now. I feel confident a pipeline company would use this as a reason to avoid changing a route and to request eminent domain.

Marta Burkgren

Please Vote No on Senate File 2067 or Amend it to Protect Property RightsIf you feel you must vote for Senate File 2067, it must be amended to state that eminent domain cannot be used for a CO2 pipeline. No exceptions. SF2067 says that a landowner may decline further communication with a pipeline company. Why are landowners only given seven days to decline communications? It should be at least 30 days. And why, after declining to communicate with the company, does the bill allow the company to continue to send one or more letters to the landowner? All of these provisions are designed to make everything easier for a company and harder for a landowner. I can tell you from personal experience that Summit Carbon Pipeline land agents will ignore requests to stop communication. I asked them to stop contacting me. They continued to harass me as I mourned my mothers recent death. They continued to harass me as our family faced a devastating medical diagnosis and treatment. One agent had the nerve to tell me that accepting an easement offer would make life easier.

Nancy Dugan [Select your title]

Senate File 2067 provides for a voluntary easement corridor that spans an entire county where an informational meeting has been held. Iowa has more than 35 million acres. Taken as a whole, the contiguous counties on the route under such a voluntary easement corridor would span millions and millions of acres. Unlike Sen. Koelker's claim, I do not think this about going over to the neighbor. See link: https://www.kcci.com/article/iowasenateremoveseminentdomainbanpipelinebill/70179174. This bill repeatedly references the Iowa Utilities Commission. Forced pooling statutes are under the management of the DNR. See Iowa Code chapter 458A. That is the chapter this legislative body secretly amended in 2024 to include naturally occurring gases (including CO2 produced from corn fermentation). Rep. Holt has stated this is an economic development project. See Iowa Code section 15A.1, which defines economic development as a public purpose. "Economic development is a public purpose for which the state, a city, or a county may provide grants, loans, guarantees, tax incentives, and other financial assistance to or for the benefit of private persons." My understanding is that farmers may benefit from the 45Z tax credit. Mitchell Hora: "...if you want 45Z to succeed, it has to allow farmers to participate and get an equitable share in the reward. Ive put together for you in this blog more details about what I shared with our DC officials. The 45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit is one of the most significant opportunities farmers have ever had to be rewarded for how they grow crops not just what or how much they grow." See this link: https://continuum.ag/45zmustworkforfarmersreflectionsfrommywhitehouseombstakeholdermeeting/. How many legislators who are farmers and who have voted on this legislation may have a stake in the game?

Barb Schomaker [Landowner and farmer]

I know it is Senator Klimesh's intent to move SF2067 forward.SF2067 REDUCES existing landowner rights but it allows big government to get involved in private matters. I and all the other landowners wanting property rights protection from eminent domain by CO2 pipelines need to be listened to. You may be listening but you are NOT HEARING the landowners. We need NO EMINENT DOMAIN by CO2 pipelines. HF2104 (original from the House) does not stop the pipeline but it saves the landowners from being continually harassed by Summit once we have said NO. Weekly I was harassed by a land agent including threatening me with eminent domain. At one point I asked to have a new route on my land. A plan was drawn, however, when I asked if it would be guaranteed that is where it would be, I received an immediate NO. My son was also physically threatened by a surveyor. Without HF2104 as originally coming from the House, we will have no property rights protection. We need that to be included. The harassments and threats will continue without no eminent domain by CO2 pipelines protection. Once landowners have property rights protection with NO EMINENT DOMAIN by CO2 pipelines process and procedures can be debated.Please LISTEN AND HEAR landowners. Thank you.

Katherine Stockdale

Please vote no on this bill. It offers no protection for landowners Against eminent domain,and allows Summit to still use the threat in negotiations.

Nancy Dugan [Select your title]

Mirage of Dissent: The Mechanics of Controlled Opposition. Joel F. Carberry, 2023. "Therein, true outlets for enmity become indistinguishable from their manufactured counterparts, deceiving detractors into serving the very system they oppose." . . . "The ultimate objective of this subversion is to obliterate the concept of informed consent, making us tolerate conditions that would otherwise be intolerable. In a healthy society that prioritizes the wellbeing of its citizens, controlled opposition is unnecessary. Mechanisms of control only become necessary when the state schemes to ransack the nations treasury, exploit its workforce into the depths of impoverishment, and replace its native identity with a gray, alien influenceactions that in conventional circumstances would catalyze a coup dtat." See link: https://ia800503.us.archive.org/5/items/mirageofdissentthemechanicsofcontrolledopposition/Mirage%20of%20DissentThe%20Mechanics%20of%20Controlled%20Opposition.pdf

Beverly McGriff

Amendment SF 2067 appears to make it look like property rights are being protected by expanding corridors on both sides of the proposed CO2 pipeline. Thus satisfying party platforms and individuals constitutional property rights. However, if one looks at the past action of Summit, would it truly protect all property owners? SF2067 is simply a fairy tale. A 20242025 Federal study shows that it cost 12.1 million dollars per mile to build gas and oil pipelines. So how realistic is it to believe that Summit would agree to the increased costs of moving the CO2 pipeline 5 miles one way or another, perhaps even zigzagging across IA landscape when remembering from the Phase 1 hearing they denied moving the pipeline 150 feet? landowners affected by the gregarious takeover wanting of their property for this project have already experienced Summit not following rules, either to save money or just due to being bad actors. One day last April my husband and I took turns babysitting our property from previously unannounced Arkansas surveyors entering our property. These Arkansas surveyors were driving their vehicle without license plates around the proposed pipeline area sneaking onto property if landowners werent there to protect it. Will this company follow any new regulations? Only in a fairy tale world can one believe that Summit will now magically follow regulations set forth in HF2067! I am trustee for property in the current corridor of lateral 12 of Summits Phase 2 proposed CO2 pipeline. I dont see how the magic wand in SF2067 can truly protect the property:as to the South an easement has been signed, to the West less a quarter of a mile is the community of Albert City, to the North is a property owner who will sign for the right amount of money,and to the East is a home and also a new County within a mile where no informational meeting has been held(costing more dollars). The magic wand of this fairy taleSF2067 will not protect all property owners! Iowans deserve laws that truly will protect them from the use of eminent domain. Not just SF2067 that make it appear from afar that landowners constitutional property rights are being protected and party platforms are being safeguarded. Iowa lawmakers can do better!Thank you for listening.

Julie Johnson

Caila Corcoran [Iowa Landowner ]

Please vote no. You say you want to protect landowner right but yet at the bottom of the bill it STILL gives the right to eminent domain. Also now we have 2 of the same bill?

Denise Hallquist

Please vote no on SF 2067. This will open up the threat of eminent domain on countless others and absolutely will not protect landowners from being persecuted by a private company whose business model is tax credits that come from the very people that are being threatened. Shame on those legislators supporting this bill. Hope your constituents can see where your heart truly isin your pockets

Julie Johnson

SF2067 Page 1, Section 1, lines 4 and 5 DEFINE reasonably available. Define diligently exhausted. Line 11 Supporting agriculture in the state of Iowa recognizes that family farms ARE businesses, and are a primary drive of the economic wellbeing of the State of Iowa. As such, family farms and individual landowners SHALL be protected from the use of eminent domain to seize their property by any person to acquire rightofway for, construct, or operate a pipeline for the primary purpose of transporting carbon oxide.Line 13 The Iowa Legislature, Governor, and Iowa Utilities Board SHALL recognize that family farmers invest in Iowa agriculture every day through their purchase of land, of their purchase of equipment manufactured in Iowa, of chemicals purchased from Iowa businesses, by employing persons living within the state, and by financing agricultural research and development through corn checkoff promotions, as well as by other means. Furthermore, the Iowa Legislature, Governor, and Iowa Utilities Board SHALL recognize that investment in the future of Iowas agricultural sector depends upon the surety for new generations of Iowa farmers that their land SHALL NOT be taken from them by means of eminent domain.As such, Senate File 2067 SHALL BE DEFEATED with a majority of NO votes.

Julie Glade [Targeted landowner]

This bill does not, in any way "vindicate and safeguard the property rights of all Iowans, including those who prefer not to accommodate the construction of a pipeline on their land". I am one of those landowners who have made it abundantly clear that I do not wish to accommodate Summit and their destructive and dangerous pipeline. I testified to that under oath at the IUC hearings, and Summit has made NO attempt to even contact me and negotiate. So what in this bill changes anything?All they have to do is claim that moving the pipeline off my property is "economically infeasible due to excessive acquisition costs" because IT WILL cost them millions of dollars. And please define "clear and convincing evidence".There is absolutely no incentive for Summit to change any of their business practices when they can continue to wield the power of eminent domain. This bill is nothing but a smokescreen and a gift to Summit.

Ann Bokelman

The amended House bill is an affront to all landowners fighting eminent domain for a private company. There is no way this qualifies as a public use as both South Dakota and Minnesota have recognized. 14 SD legislators lost their jobs over their stance on this issue. Stand with the platforms of BOTH parties and hold fast to no eminent domain for private gain. Speak with those that have been basically ganged up on by Summits land agents and join the fight against Summit who is lining the pockets of those who do their bidding.Ann Bokelman

Bonnie Ewoldt

This bill is a bait and switch. It does nothing to protect property rights when eminent domain is allowed along with a wider corridor. Summit could have been seeking voluntary easements the past five years on a wider corridor by simply asking the IUC for a widened corridor. Summit has no intention doing so as going around unwilling properties would be time consuming and too costly. Protect property rights! Pass HF2104 in its original form.

Bonnie Ewoldt

This bill is a bait and switch. It does nothing to protect property rights when eminent domain is allowed along with a wider corridor. Summit could have been seeking voluntary easements the past five years on a wider corridor by simply asking the IUC for a widened corridor. Summit has no intention doing so as going around unwilling properties would be time consuming and too costly. Protect property rights! Pass HF2104 in its original form.

Jan Norris

SF 2067 will NOT accomplish what its proponents are suggesting. The reason Iowa limits contact to landowners BEFORE a public information meeting is to allow the public a fighting chance. In 2021 when my neighbors all got meeting invitations, NO ONE KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT A CO2 PIPELINE. The public information meeting was their first introduction. Perhaps thats how Summit obtained what they claim is 74% of Phase 1 easements. They mistakenly assumed this would be like other natural gas pipelines they are familiar with. Phase 2 has more than 90% unsigned. With 4 more years of information, landowners are not as eager to sign away their rights. I have personally spoken to a local landowner who said had he known then what he does now, he would NOT have signed.