The public was invited to a forum at the Primghar Community Building on Tuesday August 1. Nearly 100 people attended the free event. Dani Rehder, Sutherland and Denise Steffen, Sutherland guided the forum.
Freshman State Representative Zach Dieken and Freshman State Senator Lynn Evans and former Congrassman Steve King to bring information to the public of carbon pipeline issues and to give answers to the public about their experience and viewpoints of current Iowa legislative issues in Des Moines.
Zach Dieken opened his seven minutes with gratitude for support from his constituents and acknowledging, “my head is still spinning.” His words gave positive feedback to those who may not personally support him but to continue to “fight for your country.”
He moved quickly to the carbon pipeline concerns, particularly the issue of eminent domain.First, he explained his “90%” vote being what he believed to be “what we could do.” Following the successful push by Dakota Access Pipeline to obtain eminent domain rights to buy an oil pipeline across Iowa despite being for private benefit, private property rights have been injured. Three carbon pipeline development projects are in development stages for different routes across Iowa. All three are clear they will use eminent domain to install their pipelines. Property owners are fighting hard against the use of eminent domain for a private, for profit project. The legal actions caused governing bodies across Iowa, from state legislature to county boards of supervisors, to be creative. Putting a minimum of the number of willing property owners affected by the project before eminent domain can be used is one of the tools that has been proposed. Dieken’s vote in favor of requiring at least 90% of the landowners to voluntarily sign an easement, which passed, wasn’t the 100% he indicated he was hoping to get. He said, “I was rather disappointed that we didn’t deal with the eminent domain issue whole-heartedly, if you want to say it that way.” He felt it would have been disingenuous to his constituents to vote against it just because it maybe wasn’t 100%. He said he wrestled with that decision right up until the vote.
Dieken plans to introduce his “piece of legislation” about land surveyors. He introduced during his freshman term and plans to introduce the legislation again, to take away the exemption for land surveyors for criminal trespass if they are on your land without the owner’s permission. “One of the things I saw my streams cross paths was as a legislator and with law enforcement. He owns an acreage himself and recognized that anyone who owns a house owns land. He described it as very confusing that these people could be on private property without consequence even if the landowner didn’t want them there. Despite having family members in the surveying business he categorized some of their activities as harassing and staking out a position that they “do it because they can get away with it and they know they can get away with it.” He went on to explain that his legislation did get out of committee but never made it to the floor. He was out-spoken that he could not explain why.
Voting against bills is also something Dieken is very proud of having done during his first term. He voiced his pride at killing a bill that would have allowed foreign entities to own Iowa land for economic development. He agreed that we need to find ways to develop our communities, but felt it would be problematic to allow foreign entities to own land and hoped that members of the audience did too.
Senator Lynn Evans followed. Evans started by stating that he felt much the same as Dieken shared, particularly about the whirlwind experience. He noted that as a freshman, “you get a lot thrown on your plate.”
Evans introduced his look-back at his first session by saying, “I think we all know the influence of money with politicians. I didn’t understand the depth of that until I got a peak behind the curtain. Even at the state level. People make large contributions to your campaign, they expect something in return. Obviously that’s sad. It shouldn’t work that way but it does.” He went on to say that that was probably the thing that disappointed him the most.
Evans shifted to the special session. The special session was to vote on a bill limiting abortion rights to no later than six weeks of pregnancy. Evans railed against the lobby/protest tactics used outside the capital during the special session. He stated that the bill being voted on was already law. He described the supreme court as “daring” the legislature to pass the law again. Evans described the special session as a “hold my beer moment.” He described how the bill is expected to move back through the court system and back to the supreme court.
Former Congressman Steve King capstoned the legislative speakers. He spoke out in favor of the heartbeat bill. He shifted to a discussion of property rights in the context of the pipeline development. King tied the pipeline to the federal legislation now known as the Inflation Reduction Act.
King shared how Navigator and Summit (2 of Iowa’s 3 carbon pipeline developers) say they aren’t going to use eminent domain. He went on to describe the routes that the two developers were proposing and that they both transit nearly the entire state in opposite directions and cross each other three times. In an effort to make sense of the strange routining shared the conclusion he reached with the facts available. Before he did that he provided the audience with a brief history of his support for ethanol since 1978. The purpose to show his support for ethanol was important when considering the pressure campaign being used to put the pipelines into place, that without them, ethanol deman could be diminished.
He tied the “Build Back Better,” aka Inflation Reduction Act, came out of the World Economic Forum and their effort to “push” the concept of global warming. King also named Charles Schwab, Larry Fink (Black Rock) and George Soros as money behind these projects. During King’s discussion he expressed his belief that a long term plan from the World Economic Forum leads to today’s fight for private property rights.
The carbon index now adopted by most European nations is being used as a driving force to transition fuel use from fossil fuel to alternative sources including ethanol and, later King mentioned methanol instead of diesel.
A look back at the first supreme court decision eroding those private property rights puts the beginning in 2005 with the Kelo decision which gave a local government the power of eminent domain to Pfizer, a private company. King believes the 5-4 decision was wrongly decided and states that the late Justice Antonin Scalia agreed, adding, “It will be reversed one day.” King believes these pipelines’ use of eminent domain would be the “biggest taking of land in history.” A point King made about the Kelo decision is that the language of the majority changes the constitutional 5th amendment standard by removing “for public purpose.”
King went on to share that he has hired Anna Ryan who has practiced before the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB), but has been blocked from representing King in this matter. King vowed this would not stop his effort. He has formed “The King Intervenors” in response to being prevented from access to IUB in the carbon pipeline matter.
According to King, the value of the tax credits offered for carbon sequestration via pipeline amounts to $17 billion annually. King stated, “If they’re successful, property rights will be a thing of the past.”
Wondering why the pipeline developers would be interested in what seems like wasteful or redundant design King realized that the carbon dioxide is a useless commodity getting a $17 billion annual subsidy and wondered why? After doing the math King is taking the position that getting ownership of the carbon pipelines sets up a duopoly (Summit and Navigator) and that those 2 companies will, in the future, be in a position to “starve” the ethanol plants. He believes that the methanol plants are the next industry to follow ethanol and would be controlled by these two companies.