Ramaswamy challenges Iowa’s governor, GOP rivals to take a stand on carbon pipelines
Des Moines, Iowa — Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy says the government should not grant carbon pipeline developers authority to seize land from Iowans who do not want the pipeline on their property.
On Friday in Des Moines, Ramaswamy appeared at an event with a group of carbon pipeline opponents called the Free Soil Coalition.
Ramaswamy says his competitors for the GOP presidential nomination should clearly state their views on the issue. He’s also challenging Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, who has endorsed rival Ron DeSantis, to say whether she’s on the side of eminent domain or not.
Ramaswamy says the issue exposes what he describes as the broken and corrupt state of the Republican Party establishment.
Ramaswamy says he’s met with influential Republican donor Bruce Rastetter, who owns Summit Carbon Solutions — the Iowa company seeking a state permit to construct and operate a pipeline to ship carbon out of ethanol plants to underground storage in North Dakota. He says the projects make no sense and the risks of running liquid carbon through an underground pipeline do not match the purported benefits.