Despite Bill Not Passing, IA Leaders Still Urged Against Pipeline
As talk around the proposed Carbon Pipeline continues, groups, such as the Calhoun County Democrats, are asking for more to be done to protect Iowans, said a report by Radio Iowa.
Emma Schmit is a member of the Iowa Democratic Party’s State Central Committee.
"Come out and support rural Iowa. We've seen Democrats continuously lose votes and this would be a huge opportunity to finally start moving that needle back," she said. "Instead, we're choosing to just sleep on the issue and ignore it."
This weekend, Schmit proposed that the Iowa Democratic Party's governing board pass a resolution that would oppose the development of carbon pipelines.
"The debate was cut off almost instantaneously before we could even explain why it's so critical that the Democratic Party speak out in support of the impacted landowners and the communities that are going to be threatened by these pipelines," Schmit said.
The Iowa Democratic Party’s platform in 2018 does support carbon sequestration- however, it does oppose eminent domain abuse.
According to Schmit, there will be efforts this weekend at county conventions to ensure the Iowa Democratic Party’s platform in 2022 includes a plank opposing carbon pipelines. However, she said that a statement would be more effective.
There was a bill going through the session sponsored by Republican Senator Jeff Taylor that would take away the Iowa Utilities Board’s power to grant eminent domain to private companies so they could build carbon pipelines or other similar projects.
However, that bill was pulled from consideration in the full committee before the Legislature’s first funnel deadline.