By Rebecca Schweitzer | Des Moines, Iowa
Rebecca Schweitzer is a Des Moines, Iowa writer covering politics, healthcare, public accountability, and civic life. I grew up on an Iowa farm and my father still farms today. This is not abstract policy to me. This is the land I know.
Iowa landowners have been showing up at the Statehouse nearly every Tuesday for five years wearing red and fighting for their property rights. This week they brought dominoes to the Capitol and lined them up outside the Senate Majority Leader's office. Each domino was labeled with something at stake: justice, the Constitution, family farms, local control. Then they let the dominoes fall. Read the full story on Iowa landowners protesting at the Capitol here.
That image says everything about where Iowa is right now on eminent domain.
What Is Actually Happening
The Iowa House passed House File 2104 in January with a 64 to 28 vote. The bill does one clear thing: it bans the use of eminent domain for carbon capture pipelines on private land. It passed with bipartisan support. It is exactly what Governor Reynolds asked for when she vetoed a similar bill last year. A clean simple bill with no unintended consequences.
Governor Reynolds has been at the center of Iowa's 2026 political landscape on multiple fronts. You can read my piece on Iowa's 2026 governor's race and why Iowa needs a new direction here.
The bill has been sitting in the Iowa Senate ever since.
Senate Majority Leader Mike Klimesh amended the bill to still allow eminent domain as a last resort if a pipeline company can show it has exhausted other options within a widened corridor. Landowners do not support that amendment. They want the House version passed as written. Klimesh told reporters he was passionate about the issue and that conversations were ongoing. The session has about two weeks left.
Iowa landowner Peg Rasmussen put it plainly: we have led the Senate to water. Now it is time for them to take a drink.
The Company at the Center of This
Summit Carbon Solutions wants to build a carbon capture pipeline across Iowa and several neighboring states. The pipeline would carry carbon dioxide emissions from Iowa ethanol plants to an underground sequestration site. The Iowa Utilities Commission granted Summit the power of eminent domain meaning the company can force Iowa farmers to accept an easement on their land whether they want to or not.
That is the core of the Iowa eminent domain pipeline fight. A private company doing a private project for private gain using the heavy hand of government to take access to land that Iowa farm families have worked for generations. Polk County families who depend on Iowa agriculture understand what is at stake when a private company can seize farmland access without the farmer's consent.
What the Pipeline Actually Does to Iowa Farmland
Iowa State University researchers studied what happened to farmland after the Dakota Access Pipeline was built. What they found should be required reading for every Iowa legislator voting on this issue.
Pipeline construction caused severe subsoil compaction and impaired soil structure that discourages root growth and reduces water infiltration. In the first two crop seasons after construction corn yields were reduced by an average of 15 percent and soybean yields by 25 percent compared to undisturbed fields. Five years later the soil was still recovering slowly. You can read the Iowa State University research here.
That is not a one time payment situation. That is years of reduced income on land that Iowa farm families depend on to survive. Iowa farmland is among the most productive in the world because of the quality of its soil. That soil takes generations to build and pipeline construction can damage it in a matter of weeks.
One Iowa farmer who went through the Dakota Access Pipeline process told reporters that pipeline officials made him a 240 percent reimbursement promise for yield losses in 2016. Years later his field was still recovering. A promise of reimbursement is not the same as the income that land would have produced if the pipeline had never been there.
The economic ripple effects reach beyond the farm. When Iowa farmers lose yield for multiple growing seasons the impact moves through rural communities, local businesses, and county budgets across the state. Agriculture is not just a rural issue. It is the foundation of Iowa's economy and Des Moines is connected to it whether residents realize it or not. I have written about Iowa's budget crisis and what it means for Polk County families here.
What Farmers Are Actually Owed
If a pipeline company is going to put infrastructure in the ground under Iowa farmland and profit from it for decades that should be treated like what it is: a long term use of private property for commercial gain.
A one time easement payment does not cover what Iowa farmers are actually giving up. It does not cover years of reduced yield while the soil recovers. It does not cover the risk of a leak or explosion damaging the land, the crops, or the water supply. It does not cover the long term restriction on how that land can be used or sold.
If a pipeline is going to sit in an Iowa farmer's ground for 30 or 40 or 50 years that farmer should be compensated the way any landlord is compensated for a long term tenant: through ongoing rental payments that reflect the actual value of what is being used, not a one time buyout designed to transfer all the risk to the farmer and all the profit to the company.
Pipeline companies should also be required to carry full liability for any leaks, explosions, or soil contamination that occurs on farmland where their infrastructure runs. Iowa farmers should not bear that risk. The company that profits from the pipeline should bear it. That accountability should extend to any downstream water contamination that affects communities including Polk County residents who depend on clean water sources connected to Iowa's agricultural land.
What Happened in Washington County
On February 14, 2026 multiple 911 calls came in reporting an explosion and large fire in rural Washington County near Brighton. The fire involved an underground pipeline owned and operated by Enterprise Products Partners. Secondary fires spread across the Skunk River. Multiple fire departments and emergency crews responded. The fire was brought under control nearly two hours after it started. Read more on the Washington County pipeline fire here.
No one was injured. But the incident happened in the middle of a state legislative session in which Iowa lawmakers are debating whether to give another pipeline company the power to force itself onto private Iowa farmland.
This is not a hypothetical. Pipelines leak. Pipelines explode. And when they do the consequences fall on the land and the families living near them not on the corporate headquarters in Houston or wherever the pipeline company calls home.
A similar carbon dioxide pipeline breach in Mississippi in 2020 released a plume of carbon dioxide that led to evacuations and sent 45 people seeking medical attention. Carbon dioxide is an asphyxiant. In high concentrations it is deadly. Iowa families from rural counties to Polk County deserve to know that risk before a pipeline is laid under land near their communities. I have written about Iowa's water quality and what Iowa families deserve here.
Who the Senate Is Actually Serving
The corn and ethanol industries support the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline because a carbon sequestration pipeline would allow Iowa ethanol plants to qualify for the ultra low carbon fuel market. That is a legitimate economic interest. But it is a corporate economic interest and it is being weighed against the property rights of individual Iowa farm families who did not ask for this pipeline and do not want it on their land.
Iowa Senate Republicans said at the beginning of this session that eminent domain was a top priority. The House passed the bill. It has sat in the Senate for months while landowners in red showed up week after week at the Capitol asking for a vote.
With two weeks left landowners are running out of patience. Peg Rasmussen said directly: there will be consequences at the polls in November if this does not get resolved. Iowa farmers have long memories. And in a state where the 2026 governor's race and Senate race are already drawing national attention Iowa legislators should understand that property rights voters will be watching.
What Iowa Owes Its Farmers
Iowa's farmers are the reason this state has any economic foundation at all. The soil they steward produces some of the most valuable agricultural output in the world. The land they farm has been in their families for generations.
Allowing a private pipeline company to force access to that land is not a fair trade. Profiting from it for decades while the farmer absorbs the yield losses and the risk of leaks and explosions is not a conservative position. And it is not consistent with the Iowa Republican Party's own stated platform on property rights.
This issue matters beyond the farm. Iowa's agricultural economy connects to water quality, property values, and community stability across the entire state. When Iowa farmers lose the fight to protect their land the consequences eventually reach everyone.
The Iowa Senate has two weeks to act. Iowa farmers have been waiting five years. Pass the House bill. Give Iowa landowners the protection they are asking for. Treat pipeline access to Iowa farmland as a long term commercial use of private property that comes with real ongoing compensation and full corporate accountability for anything that goes wrong.
Iowa farmland is worth protecting. The farmers who work it deserve better than a one time check and a promise.
Learn more about Rebecca Schweitzer and what she writes about here.
Rebecca Schweitzer is a Des Moines, Iowa writer covering politics, education, and public accountability. Her work has appeared in the Des Moines Register and The Gazette. Read more at iowaraisedrebeccaschweitzerunfiltered.com and follow along on Medium, Substack, X, Bluesky, About.me, and Gravatar.
