(Iowa Capital Dispatch) House lawmakers voted 64-28 Wednesday to approve a bill that would block companies from using eminent domain to build carbon sequestration pipelines in Iowa.
The bill now goes to the Senate, where Senate Majority Leader Mike Klimesh has introduced his own bill aimed at addressing the eminent domain issue.
The House passed a similar bill last year, along with a more complex bill aimed at protecting property rights, limiting carbon sequestration pipelines and addressing issues with the Iowa Utilities Commission. Only the second bill was taken up, and ultimately passed, by the Senate before Gov. Kim Reynolds vetoed it.
This year’s bill, House File 2104, was expedited by House Republicans who have been open in their opposition to the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline, which was granted a permit and the right to eminent domain by the Iowa Utilities Commission in 2024.
Opponents of the bill, including Summit Carbon Solutions, have said it will kill the project aimed at transporting carbon dioxide from biorefineries in Iowa and sequestering it underground. The Iowa corn and ethanol industries argue that without the pipeline, they are excluded from needed new markets.
Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison, led the bill and said the use of government power to seize property “for a private economic development project is not constitutional.”
Holt argued that if the government is to take private property, they have to prove that it serves a public purpose.
“The CO2 pipeline project, which, according to its supporters, will be a great benefit to agriculture and to our economy … but that does not make it a public use project. It is not essential for the functioning of our society, and it serves no public purpose,” Holt said.
Rep. Chad Ingels, R-Randalia, who shared that he is a fourth-generation farmer, said a “yes” vote on the bill was “not in the best interest of the public.”
He argued that eminent domain has been allowed in Iowa for the construction of drainage ditches, agricultural tile lines and railroads. Eminent domain requires landowners to allow easements on their property for a “just price” set by a county commission.
“Through this process, it looks like previously, private companies have utilized eminent domain for a private gain, while also improving the public good,” Ingels said.
Ingels argued that the market access the pipeline project would allow, for Iowa farmers who are in a downturned market, would be a “public good for all of Iowa.”
“Having better markets for our products, worldwide markets for our products, is not only in my family’s best interest … It’s in the best interest of our state and the young people wanting to come back and farm,” Ingels said. “I believe with a yes vote, and if this was signed into law, it would block this project.”
Ingels noted that since South Dakota enacted a law similar to HF 2104, the Summit project has not been able to move forward through the state.
The carbon pipeline and eminent domain issue held up legislative proceedings last year when a group of Republican senators refused to vote on key budget items until the Senate held debate on the issue.
Leading up to the start of session, lawmakers said they planned to prioritize the eminent domain issue and called for unity among Republican lawmakers.
Rep. Ross Wilburn, D-Ames, said he would vote against the bill, as he felt it didn’t represent a “comprehensive” approach to the issue.
In subcommittee and committee hearings on the bill, Wilburn asked his colleagues what had changed since the year prior when the Senate was against the bill and the governor chose to veto it.
“Governor Reynolds, you missed an opportunity to show leadership and reach out to the minority leaders in the House and the Senate in a bipartisan way to come up with a solution to address property rights and economic development,” Wilburn said during floor debate Wednesday.
Wilburn, along with 19 other House Democrats, voted against the bill.
Eight lawmakers were absent or did not vote on the issue.
Rep. Brian Lohse, R-Bondurant, also opposed the bill and said it creates “two, separate regulatory schemes” depending on the contents of a pipeline, and in doing so, “violates the protection clauses of the US and Iowa constitutions.”
“If we’re going to have regulatory schemes regulating underground pipelines, they have to be applied equally under the equal protection clauses of these constitutions,” Lohse said.
On Tuesday, Klimesh introduced two bills related to the pipeline issue. One would allow all hazardous liquid pipeline operators to seek out willing landowners for pipeline easements, outside of their approved route, when there is an unwilling landowner in the path. The other would apply a severance tax on carbon dioxide transported by the pipeline.
Opponents of the pipeline, and proponents of the eminent domain ban, said Klimesh’s bills did not give landowners the protections from eminent domain they feel is necessary.
Holt, in his closing comments, argued that under current law, and with Summit Carbon Solutions’ already approved permit from the Iowa Utilities Commission property owners who don’t want the pipeline are not protected.
“Those who want the pipeline, they can sign voluntary easements, those who do not, have the constitutionally protected right to refuse — and the government has no right, in this case, to intervene,” Holt said. “The precedent we will set, if we allow private property to be seized for a private economic development project will reverberate for decades to come, and could render property rights safeguards in our constitution meaningless for our children and our children’s children.”
A landowner opposed to the use of eminent domain for a carbon sequestration pipeline wears a shirt reading “No Eminent Domain” at the Iowa State Capitol Jan. 13, 2026. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
