A bill is continuing to move through the Iowa Legislature regarding the use of eminent domain.

Eminent domain is when a governmental or private entity can forcibly take an easement from a landowner for typically a utility project. There are three private companies looking to establish an underground carbon dioxide pipeline through Iowa, one of which would stretch into Greene County. House District 47 Representative Carter Nordman tells Raccoon Valley Radio he supported the bill to get it out of committee and eligible for floor debate. 

Part of the legislation stipulates that a company must get at least 90-percent of voluntary easement before eminent domain could be used and Nordman explains his position on that threshold.

“We need to make sure that we’re not going to have some unintended consequences with setting a threshold in (state) code. So if we’re going to set a 90-percent threshold are companies, regardless of what kind of eminent domain they’re looking for, are they going to say, ‘Oh, we’ve reached 90-percent we don’t need to go get any more voluntary easements.’ So again those are some unintended consequences that I think we need to take a look at.”   

Nordman talks about why he wanted to move the legislation to the full House for consideration.

“I think it’s an important conversation to have. I think we need to make sure that we’re balancing economic development and protecting our ethanol industry with making sure that we are protecting landowner’s rights.”   

Nordman adds that there’s only one pipeline that reaches into his district of Greene, Guthrie and northwestern corner of Dallas County, and that is with Summit Carbon Solutions and its almost ten mile trek into the county with Louis Dreyfus as one of the ethanol participants. Nordman says Summit has secured over 91-percent of voluntary easements within Greene County.