×

Says carbon pipelines are private profit, public risk

To the editor:

For the second time since Texas-based Navigator announced its plans to ram a carbon pipeline through Webster County, landowners gathered en masse Aug. 25 to demand answers about the dangerous project. Can the pipeline company provide an iron-clad safety guarantee? Will landowners be fairly compensated for their land’s condemnation? No, and no again. The corporation behind the project can’t even nail down its route — Thursday’s meeting only happened because the company changed its mind.

Carbon capture is Iowa’s problematic pipe dream. Despite industry claims, carbon pipelines are unproven, unsound, and unnecessary. They serve one purpose — and it’s not to mitigate the climate crisis or preserve the use of ethanol. These pipelines only exist to allow corporate fatcats to profit from our public tax dollars.

The three carbon capture pipelines currently proposed for Iowa would be eligible to receive up to $40 billion from our federal tax dollars over the next 12 years. That’s money straight out of your and my pocket to pad the wallets of cushy corporate executives. While the corporations behind the carbon pipelines like to tout the economic benefits the projects could bring to our communities, the truth is that we are bankrolling the pipelines — not the other way around.

We have enabled corporate greed for too long. It’s time our public money is invested in working families and our communities, not Wall Street speculators.

While the rising cost of inflation has left Iowans across the state struggling to get by, Navigator, Summit, and Wolf — the corporations behind the carbon pipeline scams — spent $92,600 lobbying our state elected officials during the 2022 legislative session. Navigator alone has spent $760,000 lobbying members of Congress over the past 10 months. In spite of the exorbitant sums of money they’ve blown to influence public policy, they still haven’t succeeded in convincing Iowans to support the proposed carbon pipelines.

Food &Water Action polling indicates that 80% of Iowans oppose using eminent domain for carbon pipelines. Meanwhile, 66% of impacted counties have filed official objections opposing the projects. Iowans aren’t fooled by empty promises and hollow assurances. We’ve seen this before, and we know private pipeline profits will come at the public’s expense. If we don’t stop these projects, landowners, rural communities, and local emergency responders will have to live with the possibility that a dangerous pipeline rupture could endanger the lives of everyone — and everything, including our livestock — within miles of the pipeline.

These corporations are here to make a profit by stealing our land and hoarding our tax dollars — we have to stop them.

Our public institutions and elected officials must do their jobs and protect Iowans from these pipeline grifts. Our land, our communities, and our futures are not for sale. The Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) will be responsible for deciding whether these corporations have the right to take our land for their profits. Tell the Iowa Utilities Board: no eminent domain for private gain and no carbon pipelines for Iowa!

Emma Schmit

Rockwell City

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *

Starting at $4.62/week.

Subscribe Today