Iowa conservatives, activists united in disdain for pipeline ruling

DES MOINES, Iowa — The most surprising part of the news, was who wasn’t surprised by it.

“Well I wasn’t shocked but I was very disappointed to see it.”

Not conservative Republicans like Charly Thomson, and not activists like Jean Kohles.

“It was pretty much a done deal from day one,” said Kohles, whose farmland in Cherokee County lies directly in the path of the pipeline. “It was a done deal with Gov. Reynolds’ support and (millionaire ethanol producer and owner of Summit Carbon Solutions Bruce) Rastetter.”

Strange bedfellows united in their disappointment that Tuesday’s unanimous vote by the Iowa Utilities Board gives Iowa’s private ethanol industry the power to encroach on Iowa’s private landowners.

“One of the deals is that you cannot make any improvements or change the contours of the land in any way after the pipeline goes in,” Kohles said.

“There is nothing more fundamental about constitutional principles,” Thomson said, “than the right to have your property free and clear of unwarranted interference by the government, and this is an unwarranted interference.”

The news is far better for those connected to ethanol. The industry needs a way to unload its harmful carbon emissions to be able to sell to more markets. The Summit pipeline would move carbon emissions from Iowa’s ethanol refineries to deposit areas in North Dakota.

“We need to make sure that we continue to drive that demand and grind that corn,” said Nathan Hohnstein, a lobbyist with the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, “or we have potential of looking at what happened just 30-year- ago — what happened in the state when we had a slowdown in the ag economy.”

But rather than celebrate, the industry says it intends to continue trying to win over skeptics.

“I don’t believe anybody wants to be using eminent domain,” Hohnstein said. “I don’t think that’s a fun process for any side and so hopefully there is an ability to continue to have those conversations.”

Opponents say today signals it’s time to take the fight to the courts and to get serious in the state house.

“This is a real line that’s been crossed,” Thomson said. “This is now a real, direct threat to the property rights of all Iowans. So if we’re serious about protecting people’s property rights, we have to get serious about eminent domain reform.”

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