Senator Al Novstrup (R-3/Aberdeen) showed up at a rally on the steps of the McPherson County Courthouse in Leola on May 15 to speak against carbon dioxide pipelines and the use of eminent domain. Video of the rally, posted to Rumble by radical fundagelical Matthew Monfore, shows Novstrup getting off topic on digital currency before addressing the pipeline proposed by Iowa Republican corporation Summit Carbon Solutions (go to timestamp 57:40 for Novstrup’s remarks):
Novstrup opened his remarks in Leola by praising rookie Representative Julie Auch (R-18/Yankton) for leading the effort to kill this year’s House Bill 1193, which had nothing to do with the eminent domain and CO2 pipelines that the crowd had gathered to protest. Novstrup, like Auch and the other right-wingers who fluffed HB 1193 into a political attention-grab, said incorrectly that HB 1193 was all about promoting government digital currency. Novstrup claimed that digital currency would allow the government to stop you from donating to your church, joining the NRA, or traveling to a protest. In an apparent response to preceding speakers’ criticism of Governor Kristi Noem’s failure to intervene in the Republican-run Summit Carbon Solutions’ resort to eminent domain to seize property rights, Senator Novstrup gave Governor Noem an “atta-girl” for vetoing HB 1193.
Finally turning to the topic that drew the crowd to Leola, Senator Novstrup said that he asked a representative of Summit Carbon Solutions how much effect the pipeline’s carbon dioxide sequestration will have on global temperatures (and Novstrup incorrectly says we haven’t had a talk to determine whether changes in temperatures are good or bad). Novstrup says the SCS rep told him the effect would be “negligible”. Thus, Novstrup concludes the we should spend that money on Social Security or roads or something else.
Senator Novstrup said the pipeliners haven’t done enough science to tell us how far the dangers of compressed CO2 might extend around a pipeline rupture. “Is it a block, is it a half a mile, or ten miles? What is it? And the answer is, ‘Depends.’ It depends on the wind, it depends on the humidity, it depends on the geography, and so do you really want your life based upon, ‘It depends’?”
Senator Novstrup blipped that “the property rights is a problem”, but he did not develop an argument on that core issue of eminent domain around which activists of all stripes can rally and for which we have only Novstrup’s fellow Republican corporate profiteers to blame. Darn—it’s too bad we don’t have digital currency so we could have stopped Summit Carbon Solutions from sponsoring Governor Noem’s inauguration….
If only the farmers were promised a kickback for a stretch of pipeline on their land they’d be for the pipeline in a second, and would leave all their objections aside, be they those of safety, global warming, China investors, eminent domain arguments…
Farmers do get payed a certain amount per foot of pipeline on their land,
but it is a one time payment. Some farmers think they should get a yearly
payment, but there is nothing in the law that requires such a payment.
Farmers whose land is leased for this pipeline scam should want the very best partnership deal that can be negotiated. That is lease language and payments should be in their best interests and their liability should be minimized and protected. The Farmers own the land, without which the pipeline cannot proceed in a straight line. Since straight lines seem to be in the interest of the pipeline company it seems to me the Farmers are in a position of negotiating strength sans eminent domain which creates an inherently unlevel playing field. And besides, its a scam. Our politicians, like the Iowa based companies, believe they can get away with running this scam.
If the pipeline company takes a portion of a farmer’s land for its pipeline through eminent domain, then I think the company essentially becomes the owner of that land, which would mean that it is not leased by that company. And under eminent domain law that farmer would be entitled to “just compensation” pursuant to the 5th Amendment for that land taken, which would seem only to be a one time payment rather than an annual lease like payment.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fifth_amendment#:~:text=While%20the%20federal%20government%20has,the%20time%20of%20the%20takings.
I also think it’s delicious that the dim witted Senator Novstrup has blundered his way into crossing swords with the Birch Society and pushing his constituency into their influence. Republicans are their own worse enemy.
If compensation is indeed the issue one would think that’s what we’d be hearing about.
Clearly, most feel that Mr. Novstrup, the elder, needs to start reaching out to grudznick again for some talking bullets instead of sidling closer and closer to the lunatic fringe. Even his boy, Mr. Novstrup, the younger, could help him out a wee bit.
I, for one, welcome the SDGOP circular firing squad.
Grudznick–is it Novstrup the Senior or Novstrup the Junior who the esteemed Senator from Watertown is calling “stupid” over on the Powers blog.