DES MOINES REGISTER: How the Iowa GOP's divide on an eminent domain for CO2 pipeline bill is swaying rural voters
Sabine Martin, 4/17/25
"As the prospect for the passage of a bill to ban eminent domain use from agricultural land in Iowa wanes this legislative session, Greene County farmer Dan Tronchetti's belief that Republican lawmakers are listening to voters like him is waning as well.
Tronchetti, 68, said when he came home in August 2021 to a notice in his mail with Summit Carbon Solutions' request for a voluntary easement to build its carbon capture pipeline on land his family's owned since 1975, he didn't expect it would lead to sleepless nights and long days at the Iowa Capitol to oppose it.
He's one of dozens of Iowa landowners who have shown up at the Iowa Capitol to meet with lawmakers over the last four years to advocate for legislation to block carbon capture pipelines, like Summit Carbon Solutions' planned sprawling project, from acquiring agricultural land with eminent domain.
Though the Iowa Senate took up one of the House's attempts this year, House File 639, to restrict pipeline companies from using eminent domain for private property owners' land, the issue for years has driven a wedge between the two chambers' majorities.
The lack of unified support among Iowa GOP lawmakers on eminent domain policy for carbon capture pipelines has left some rural Republican voters like Tronchetti questioning their support for future elections.
"There are a lot of good Republicans in the House that have done a lot of good work, so I'm really proud of them, but the Senate just, well, let's narrow it down. There's good senators, but the problem is Senate leadership," Tronchetti said, sitting recently on bags of seed corn in an equipment shed on his farm.
The Senate Commerce Committee advanced the bill in April but made sweeping changes through an unexpected amendment. The amendment's supporters say it opens the bill to address protections for Iowa landowners and all types of utility pipelines, while opponents say it's a "poison pill."
"People aren't concerned, but anybody that'll listen to me, I tell them they need to be concerned because this sets a dangerous precedent: The abuse of eminent domain," Tronchetti said…
“Now, some Iowa voters are setting their sights on the 2026 elections as an opportunity to do the same.
After the turnover in the South Dakota Legislature, Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden signed a bill March 6, siding with landowners on the issue. Since then, Summit has asked the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission to suspend its permit application, which is up for consideration at an April 22 commission meeting.
The decision could slow the pipeline's construction in Iowa because the Summit can't break ground on the pipeline in the state until permits are granted in North and South Dakota.
Kim Junker, a farmer and landowner from Butler County who said she's affected by the pipeline, said at a committee meeting in April that as a registered Republican, she's "sick and tired of the games the Republicans have been playing with our lives." She said she isn't the only Iowa landowner who feels that way.
"It angers me that we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy our farms, our businesses, our livelihoods, and now we have to continually spend thousands of dollars to keep others from profiteering off the property plus collect our tax dollars for something everyone knows is a scam and a boondoggle, this pipeline," Junker said.
Another landowner, Kathy Stockdale of Hardin County, said she's been talking to lawmakers about legislation regulating eminent domain for four years, and they "still don't get it."
"It is time for Iowa senators to take a stand like our House of Representatives and like the people in South Dakota," Stockdale said. "Because I will tell you as a Republican, we are upset and we will be looking for new people if you don't help us out."
Michael Card, an associate professor emeritus of political science at the University of South Dakota, said the movement to oust over a dozen Republicans in the South Dakota Legislature was primarily a grassroots campaign from rural residents affected by the pipeline and a coalition of GOP lawmakers.
"It would seem that there is great potential for a grassroots effort among the rural communities to really put pressure on the legislature to pass something like this, so essentially declare either carbon pipelines are subject to eminent domain or not a public conveyance," Card said of Iowa…
“For Tronchetti, he said he still has hope in slowing the pipeline's construction and use of eminent domain through lawsuits and the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission's upcoming decision.
"I'm cheering for the citizens of South Dakota," Tronchetti said. "That's just been impressive what people in South Dakota have done to protect their own private property rights, with the first step being getting rid of legislators that worked for Summit Carbon Solutions."