IUC Denies Summit Request for Consolidated Dockets; Hearing Set for Floyd County in March

The Iowa Utilities Commission has denied a request from Summit Carbon Solutions to consolidate outstanding dockets for two sections of carbon pipeline in the company’s second phase of the project. 

Summit’s phase 2 pipeline routes would add laterals to the pipeline, allowing it to connect to more biorefineries than the original route included. Among them, Valero Renewables just west of Charles City. 

In the request, Summit said the IUC has scheduled and held hearings and issued orders for “several other energy infrastructure projects” but has been “ignoring Summit.” Summit’s initial filings for the project were made between October 2024 and September 2025, according to the request, but the company said it has not received the “basic procedural path” forward and that the IUC is “making the process longer and more cumbersome.” 

The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports Summit said the drawn-out process is harming the ethanol industry and farmers who want access to low-carbon biofuel markets the carbon sequestration pipeline would open up. 

Colleen Tucker, a landowner from Mitchell County, told commissioners Thursday that it was “incredibly bold and frankly offensive” for Summit to speak on behalf of landowners in its filing. Tucker added that the IUC is not responsible for Summit’s investments and that investment “doesn’t give the company a regulatory shortcut or a cut to the front of the line.” 

Landowners gathered Thursday ahead of the IUC’s first monthly public meeting with its newest commissioner, Jon Dunwell, who was appointed Monday by Governor Kim Reynolds. Those gathered, in their signature red shirts, said they were opposed to the recent appointment and argued Dunwell’s past as a legislator made him partial in the pipeline issue.

Floyd County landowner Kathy Carter said she was “really concerned” with Dunwell, noting “Because of his past in the Legislature and his ability to vote, I believe it’s a conflict of interest. Anybody who’s been in that position to affect any legislation should not have the ability to vote on the IUC.”

In fall 2025, Summit filed a request to amend its permit with the IUC to no longer travel through South Dakota and to a sequestration site in North Dakota. The lawsuit over the initial permit was partially remanded to the IUC because of the amendment, and according to the IUC response, comments on how to proceed with the permit included a request to keep the Floyd and Ida County dockets in phase two as “stand-alone dockets.” 

IUC held a hearing in September to determine a hearing schedule on dockets for two sections of pipe planned for Ida and Floyd counties, both of which are less than 5 miles. In denying Summit’s consolidation request, IUC finalized hearing dates for the segments. The docket pertaining to Floyd County will be heard March 23, 2027 and the Ida County hearing will occur Feb. 23, 2027. Both will be held in Des Moines and are later than the middle of December hearing dates requested by Summit.