Letter to the Editor: Keep up pressure against pipelines

By Pat and Dale Mennenga, Clarksville

We feel compelled to write this letter to update everyone on the carbon pipeline project going through Iowa and specifically Butler County.

Recently, the Iowa House of Representatives passed two bills related to stopping the use of eminent domain for carbon pipelines. We thank our representatives for passing legislation to protect our property rights.

HF 943 and HF 639 will hopefully move into the Senate. Typically the anti-pipeline bills go to the Senate commerce committee. In the past three years, they were not passed out of committee for reasons never released publicly.

South Dakota has set a precedent by their Gov. Rhoden signing a bill that passed the House and Senate on March 6, 2025. That bill bans the use of eminent domain for carbon dioxide pipelines.

That was a huge win for us in Iowa. But we are still fighting for property rights in Iowa. Summit Carbon Solutions is still trying to buy easements and get hazardous liquefied CO2 piped to North Dakota to bury underground.

The reason they want to do this is to collect 45Q tax credits from the US government as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. Summit carbon solutions has stated that there is up to $9 billion to be made off of this project. These are where our tax dollars are projected to be used. That’s wrong!

Please email or call your senators to stop this iniquitous boondoggle. We need to stop the use of eminent domain of agricultural land for carbon dioxide pipelines.