Iowa legislative session heads to overtime

Yahoo

02-05-2025

The golden dome of the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
Two major roadblocks remain before Iowa lawmakers can pass the state's budget and end the 2025 legislative session — pipelines and paraeducator pay, among a few other spending priorities.
Iowa lawmakers will not receive most session per-diem payments after Friday — a milestone meant to spur legislators to approve budget bills and end the session. While Republicans hold a trifecta of control at the Statehouse, there are still disagreements between the two chambers on funding and policy proposals. One of the major pieces of policy that remains up for discussion is the use of eminent domain in carbon sequestration pipeline projects.
On Wednesday, a group of 12 GOP senators sent a letter to Senate leadership demanding debate on House File 639, legislation passed by the House and approved through the Senate committee process.
'We believe addressing eminent domain is more important than the budget or any other priority for the 2025 session and pledge to vote against any remaining budget bill until a floor vote occurs on the clean HF639 bill,' the letter states.
Bills need a constitutional majority, at least 26 votes, in order to pass the Senate. If the 12 Republican senators who signed the letter and all 16 Democrats vote against a bill, the measure will fail.
The lawmakers who signed onto the letter were Sens. Kevin Alons, Doug Campbell, Rocky De Witt, Lynn Evans, Dennis Guth, Mark Lofgren, Mike Pike, Dave Rowley, Sandy Salmon, Dave Sires, Jeff Taylor and Cherielynn Westrich. These senators and others have spoken on the Senate floor about the need to pass a bill on eminent domain and pipelines during 'points of personal privilege' following debate in the past two weeks.
Sen. David Rowley, R-Spirit Lake, said Senate discussion on the use of eminent domain in pipeline projects has 'been a long time coming' as Senate discussions on similar measures have failed to advance for the past three years.
'We had a lot of pushback over the years and and we felt this year, it was getting strung out as well, so we took this measure to do everything we can to bring it to the floor,' Rowley said.
The measures brought up in 2025 and during previous legislative sessions largely focus on the proposed Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline, which would span more than 1,000 miles in Iowa transporting liquid carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to underground storage facilities in North Dakota. Rowley said he has had many discussions with landowners who would be affected by the Summit project, many of whom are concerned about the potential health risks posed by a CO2 pipeline on their property.
'It's horrible to think that the government could come in and force them to have that pipeline on their property,' Rowley said. 'And even though Summit's done a great job I think, working with people or trying to, it's still — it's not enough. It can't be enough.'
The bill brought up in the letter is a measure the House advanced in March to prohibit carbon sequestration pipelines from using eminent domain in Iowa. Floor debate at the time included concerns over the Senate's avoidance of eminent domain bills over the past several years.
The proposal combines a number of bills previously proposed in the House aimed at hindering the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline. The bill would increase insurance requirements for pipeline operators, limit permits to one 25-year term and adjust the definition of a common carrier that would eligible for eminent domain. The bill also requires a member of the Iowa Utilities Commission be present at all hearings, limits the commission's ability to impose sanctions on Iowans who intervene in the proceedings and allows affected Iowans, including lawmakers, to intervene.
Sen. Mike Bousselot, R-Ankeny, proposed a major amendment to the bill that would remove the eminent domain ban and broaden the scope of the bill to include all eminent domain projects in the state — such as roads or utility lines — not just liquid hazardous pipelines. The amendment, which can only be officially adopted on the floor, would allow projects to find voluntary easements outside of the original project corridor, which Bousselot said during committee hearings would allow projects to 'avoid' eminent domain.
His amendment would also require an IUC decision on a permit within one year and strikes almost all of the House language, keeping only the IUC attendance requirements and portions of the insurance requirements.
Sen. Kevin Alons, R-Salix, proposed a strikethrough amendment to Bousselot's proposition. Another amendment, proposed by a group of largely the same GOP lawmakers who signed onto the letter, would limit the definition of public use projects in Iowa Code related to eminent domain for the construction of 'hazardous liquid pipelines for the transportation or transmission of liquefied carbon dioxide.'
Salmon, R-Janesville, said in an interview with the Iowa Capital Dispatch the letter was sent as public pressure has been building for Iowa lawmakers to take action on this issue.
'By and large, the public has become quite aware of it now, and and really don't see the need for eminent domain to be used for this project,' Salmon said. 'It's a private project. It's for private use. It's not a public use project, and our Constitution requires it be a public use in order to have eminent domain used.'
The fact that South Dakota now has a law banning the use of eminent domain for carbon dioxide pipeline has also helped 'build the momentum to put the same type of prohibitions on CO2 pipelines here in Iowa,' Salmon said.
Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver said in a statement that 'a number of Republican Senators are working on policy surrounding eminent domain and pipeline issues and I am optimistic we will find a legislative solution.'
The senators' plan to block legislation from moving unless eminent domain legislation comes to the floor is not the only item keeping lawmakers from advancing budget bills.
On Monday, the governor and Senate Republicans said in a news release they had reached a 'budget compromise.' The same day, House Republicans released their own targets for the state's fiscal year 2026 budget.
In the following days, appropriations subcommittees and committees passed budget bills. But as of Thursday, the chambers have not reached resolutions on the line items that remain a conflict between the two chambers. House Appropriations Committee Chair Rep. Gary Mohr, R-Bettendorf, asked lawmakers on the Appropriations Committee Thursday to 'stand ready' for future meetings, but did not lay out a timeline for when the committee will advance the remaining budget bills.
The difference between the two budget targets comes down to $36 million, a relatively small amount when comparing the$9.453 billion in the House proposal and $9.417 billion in the agreement reached between Gov. Kim Reynolds and Senate Republicans. However, Reynolds said in an interview on the WHO AM Simon Conway show this amount was still important during a time when the state needs to be 'fiscally responsible,' as it faces lower revenue from income tax cuts and federal financial uncertainty.
'Somebody said, 'Well, it's not that much money, it's only $36 million difference between the two,' — well, it is a lot of money,' Reynolds said in the interview. 'Ask Iowans how much money that is. And every time, it's that kind of mentality, it's that kind of thought process that grows government and gets you in trouble in the first place.'
But House Speaker Pat Grassley told reporters Thursday the differences between the two budgets largely entail spending for which House Republicans will have trouble compromising.
One of the largest pieces, $14 million, provides continued funding to raise the pay for paraeducators and other school staff. The measure was first approved in a 2024 law that also made changes to Iowa's Area Education Agencies. Grassley said this spending was included in Reynolds' original budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 and then removed in negotiations with the Senate.
'At no point did we think that that wasn't going to be something that we were going to be able to fund,' Grassley said. 'And I will be honest with you, that's one of the pieces right now that I would say is one of the biggest sticking points. Our caucus feels extremely strongly that if we're going to provide that level of support that we did with that bill last year, that we're not going to go back and just cut that, and leave our schools in a situation to find the difference.'
Reynolds said Thursday in an interview with Radio Iowa that 'nothing was mentioned about the $14 million' in earlier negotiations on education spending related to the State Supplemental Aid package passed in early April.
Other spending components in House Republicans' package that differ between the two chambers are an $8 million bump for community colleges compared to the Senate proposal, and a $9 million difference in funding for certain nursing facility reimbursement rates.
Grassley said it is not out of the ordinary for the governor and Senate Republicans to be in closer alignment on budget goals than House Republicans.
'With 67 members representing every county across the state, we try to have a very open situation when it comes to our budget, take as much feedback and fund those priorities. And again, our goal is when we leave here (that) we fund the commitments that we've made to Iowans, as well as make strategic investments.'
— Cami Koons contributed to this report.