Iowa Senate and House diverge on eminent domain as lawmakers advance Senate GOP proposal

DES MOINES — Common ground on legislation regarding the use of eminent domain for hazardous liquid pipelines has yet to be found between the Iowa House and Senate as the two bodies continue to diverge on the issue after Senate lawmakers advanced a proposal from the chamber’s leader.

Late Thursday morning, an Iowa Senate subcommittee composed of Senate Majority Leader Mike Klimesh, R-Spillville and state Sens. Mike Bousselot, R-Ankeny, and Janet Petersen, D-Des Moines, advanced Klimesh’s proposal addressing eminent domain.

Klimesh’s proposal would allow hazardous liquid pipeline companies to amend planned and approved routes to enter into voluntary easements with landowners and avoid using eminent domain, if they wished.

Supporters of the legislation argue it would balance the rights of landowners while creating new ethanol markets for struggling Iowa farmers and would produce more construction jobs in rural Iowa. Critics say the legislation includes no safeguards against companies using eminent domain to acquire private land for projects.

Klimesh, who is shepherding the bill through the Senate, said it is a good vehicle to help drive the conversation on eminent domain in the Legislature as both chambers work to find a compromise.

“I see this as an extension of a conversation we've had under the dome here for the last four years,” Klimesh said. “This bill, again, is not unique to Iowa. This methodology, this approach, is not unique to Iowa. It provides us a solution and a path forward.”

This was the third move by the Senate on the issue this week, as the same subcommittee on Tuesday considered a bill passed by the House earlier this month, prohibiting the use of eminent domain for carbon capture pipelines. The bill was amended in the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday, replacing the language in the House bill with Klimesh’s proposal.

While the legislation would focus on eminent domain use for all hazardous liquid pipeline projects, the focus of the discussion was a proposed Summit Carbon Solutions carbon sequestration pipeline that would cut through Iowa.

Landowners, unions, renewable fuel backers comment on the proposal

During the Thursday subcommittee, landowner activists in red shirts lined one side of the room, while lobbyists and representatives for unions, renewable fuel organizations and a carbon capture pipeline company sat on the other side.

Colin Gorton, representing the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, which supports the bill, said widening the corridor will allow pipeline companies to make more educated maps of potential routes using land gained through voluntary easements.

“We expect that expanding the corridor will really eliminate the use of eminent domain for building a project like this,” Gorton said. “These two provisions will dramatically reduce even the thought by allowing companies to draw a more thoughtful route on the front end.”

Jake Ketzner, representing Summit Carbon Solutions, said while the group supports widening the corridor, it remains undecided on the legislation, arguing the bill is not a “clean corridor expansion bill.”

“Summit Carbon Solutions has requested a clean corridor expansion bill, and that is not what this bill does,” Ketzner said. “While the bill does expand the corridor, we oppose parts that create new processes, because this will raise costs and extend timelines.”

Kathy Stockdale, a Hardin County landowner, said she and other landowners have been advocating for property rights protections at the Iowa Capitol for five years and they don’t want to see a compromise on eminent domain use.

"We have already compromised, (from) preventing carbon pipelines altogether to now allowing them to be built as long as it's on consenting land only,” Stockdale said. “Legislators can stop telling us what we need and start listening to what we need.”

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Petersen rejected signing on to advance the legislation, saying it is lopsided “in favor of the corporation over land owners.”

“It actually expands the opportunity for a corporation to use eminent domain,” Petersen said.

Bousselot, who chaired the subcommittee, said the years-long debate over eminent domain is part of the legislative process, which is “meant to take time.”

“It is my fervent hope and desire that we get something done this session,” Bousselot said. “From my perspective, this is a bill that is meant to do something. It is meant to avoid and to end the use of domain, and is meant to strengthen private property rights.”

Bousselot and Klimesh signed on to advance the bill to the full Senate Commerce Committee.

Senate Democrats, House Republicans, Reynolds weigh in

On Thursday, Gov. Kim Reynolds told reporters at Great Oaks High School and Career Center in Des Moines that she is having conversations with Republican leaders in both chambers on the issue of eminent domain, adding that they want to find a resolution.

Last year, Reynolds vetoed eminent domain-related legislation passed by the House and Senate, saying it was “too broad.”

“Hopefully we can get something done, I think that's the intent of both chambers and the governor's office and so hopefully, same thing, we can figure out what that path looks like, how we get the required votes that we need in both chambers, and then it's something that I feel comfortable signing,” Reynolds said. “All three of us are engaged in that. And that's important.”

After the bill advanced out of subcommittee, Republican state Rep. Steve Holt, of Denison, who sponsored the House legislation prohibiting eminent domain use for carbon capture pipelines, said he is tracking the Senate bill closely and is waiting to see what comes of the debate on the other side of the rotunda.

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“I have been clear that I do not think expanding the corridor is enough without direct protections for landowners against eminent domain. That’s where I stand. But we will see what the Senate does and go from there,” Holt said in a statement to the Gazette-Lee Des Moines Bureau.

Senate Minority Leader Janice Weiner, D-Iowa City, said she thinks the current difference between both chambers on the issue could create another “stalemate” similar to the 2025 legislative session.

"I don't see the House bill getting a vote on the Senate floor, hard for me to imagine the Senate bill getting a vote on the House floor,” Weiner told reporters ahead of Thursday’s subcommittee. “It's time for our Republican colleagues to figure this out.”

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