The Iowa Utilities Commission is moving toward hearings on the second phase of a proposed carbon dioxide pipeline, which would add hundreds of miles of lines to a project already stuck in a legal quagmire.
Summit Carbon Solutions initially intended to carry CO2 from ethanol plants across the Corn Belt to North Dakota for underground storage, but that’s been derailed by court challenges over their plan to use eminent domain to acquire land for the pipeline.
The utilities commission heard comments Monday on the proposed hearing schedule for additional sections of Summit’s planned route. The panel approves permits for hazardous liquid pipelines and evaluates whether projects can seize portions of private property along the route to install pipeline infrastructure. The commissioners cannot approve any docket unless they find that the project will “promote public necessity,” said Sarah Martz, chair of the panel.
Summit Carbon Transport, an affiliate of Summit Carbon Solutions and the company leading the second phase of the project, asked the commission to expedite the draft schedule, which currently sets the final hearing in late February, and instead reach a decision on the dockets by the end of the year. The Iowa Farm Bureau and Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, both recognized as official parties in the case, backed Summit’s request for quick decision-making.
But multiple landowners along the proposed pipeline route argued that it’s too soon for the commission to even set a hearing schedule.
“We shouldn’t even be here today. We have the proverbial cart before the horse,” said Deborah Main, whose family farm outside Sioux City falls along the route. “What exactly is the purpose of this project?”
The Summit pipeline faces significant legal challenges, including South Dakota’s recent ban on eminent domain for carbon pipelines and a North Dakota judge revoking the company’s permit to store CO2 underground in the state.
Now, Summit has said it is considering destinations in Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado and Kansas. “We’re asking for permission to explore all options,” said Bret Dublinske, an attorney for the company, in an Iowa district court hearing last September.
According to the project website, those options will likely include using the carbon dioxide, a byproduct of ethanol production, for enhanced oil and gas drilling. Linking Iowa ethanol plants to domestic fossil fuel production would be a sharp departure from Summit’s original, climate-conscious pitch for the pipeline.
Also in September 2025, Summit petitioned the Iowa Utilities Commission for permission to amend the terms of its permit and remove language specifying a route or destination for the pipeline. The commission has yet to rule on that petition.
Meanwhile, an Iowa district court is still hearing a case brought by landowners challenging the commission’s approval of phase one of the pipeline.
At the scheduling hearing Monday, many landowners with property along the route argued that Summit should decide on the pipeline’s final destination before any additional dockets are heard.
“This is a pipeline to nowhere,” said Kerry King, who owns farmland in Dickens, Iowa. “There should be no hearings until there is a completed route. That would just make common sense to me.”
Brant Leonard, an attorney representing Summit Carbon Transport, told the commissioners that hearings for the dockets in phase two could be expedited as the company’s evidence “would be very similar, if not identical” to evidence that’s been presented to the commission in previous hearings for the pipeline.
The connection between phase two dockets and previous Summit pipeline hearings is hardly a consolation, Main said: “This docket is dependent on the original project that’s now entangled in chaos and litigation.”
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Anika Jane Beamer covers the environment and climate change in Iowa, with a particular focus on water, soil and CAFOs. A lifelong Midwesterner, she writes about changing ecosystems from one of the most transformed landscapes on the continent. She holds a master’s degree in science writing from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as a bachelor’s degree in biology and Spanish from Grinnell College. She is a former Outrider Fellow at Inside Climate News and was named a Taylor-Blakeslee Graduate Fellow by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.
