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Iowa regulators rebuff Navigator’s proposed schedule
Pipeline company wants final decision by state board by October 2024
The Iowa Utilities Board rejected a request to meet next week to discuss a schedule that will dictate the remainder of Navigator CO2 Ventures’ carbon dioxide pipeline permit process, according to board documents.
Navigator is the second company to propose a sprawling pipeline system in Iowa to transport captured carbon dioxide away from ethanol plants and other facilities. It suggested a schedule last month that includes a start date for its final evidentiary hearing in June 2024. The company seeks a decision on its hazardous liquid pipeline permit request in October 2024.
“The board will not adopt the tentative proposed schedule filed by Navigator,” the board said in a recent order denying the company’s request to meet next week.
It was unclear in the order whether the board merely objected to a meeting next week or if it disagreed with the broader schedule. The board set a scheduling conference for the company’s permit request in early October. That would follow a deadline set by the company to complete its list of land parcels that might be subject to eminent domain.
State rules require that list to be complete before regulators set the final evidentiary hearing, and its incomplete status led opponents and others to object to Navigator’s scheduling proposal. They said Navigator has failed to submit any portions of its eminent domain list despite earlier indications it would do so starting months ago.
Navigator, in its response to those objections, said it wants to solidify a schedule to avoid claims that its permit process is being rushed, which has dogged the permit application of Summit Carbon Solutions. Summit was the first to propose a carbon dioxide pipeline in the state and is set to start its final hearing in less than two weeks.
The companies have sought voluntary land easements from landowners to construct their pipelines, but they could use eminent domain to force easements with the approval of the utilities board.
This article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.
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