(Radio Iowa) – Dozens of landowners who would be impacted by the proposed Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline project held a conference call today (Thursday) to talk about the governor’s veto of the pipeline bill. Megan Sloma is the part owner of a Century farm in Sioux County says the governor chose the rights of the pipeline company over landowners, without any alternatives. “My dad told me growing up to never bring him a problem without also bringing him possible solutions, so I would ask Governor Reynolds what is your solution to help the land owners?,” Sloma says. Wright County land owner Julie Glade says she is “righteously angry” about the veto. ”

Megan Sloma. (Photo from Sierra Club video news conference)

Governor Reynolds, I’d like for you to tell me how modern life depends on the pumping of a waste product, highly pressurized and dangerous, through our very productive rich family farmland. I feel like she’s thrown us under the bus and sided with wealthy corporate interests in the state of Iowa,” Glade says.

Glade says people are paying attention like never before, and that will show when its election time.  “My phone was exploding yesterday with messages from friends and family that heard the breaking news that governor Reynolds had vetoed our bill,” Glad says. “This is going to be a high priority election issue from here on out. We are going to make sure of it. We can do what South Dakota did and elect representatives that will reflect the will of the majority in Iowa, unlike Governor Reynolds and her minions in Senate leadership.” Bremer County Supervisor Cory Cerwinske says the veto is extremely disheartening, and says the governor’s reasoning is absolutely flawed from any and every angle. “This isn’t an agree to disagree circumstance, as we sometimes see ourselves varying over legislation. This veto is an outright attack on our inalienable rights that we, the people, are protected by both our U-S and Iowa Constitutions,” Cerwinske says. He supports the effort to override the veto, and also wants the governor removed from office.

“I suggest to speaker Grassley that in addition to an attempt to override, that our General Assembly addressed the glaring issue of the governor’s malfeasance by ignoring the Constitution to decimate our private property rights with her actions, by going forward and introducing articles of impeachment under the guidelines contained in Article three, Section 20 of the Iowa Constitution,” Cerwinske says. Republican Representative Steven Holt of Denison says impeachment is not the way to go. “Look, I understand everybody’s emotions on this, but a governor choosing to veto a piece of legislation in spite of what we feel about how it may violate the Constitution and those sorts of things probably doesn’t rise to the level of impeachment. So I doubt that that would get gained much traction,” Holt says.

Holt says that there would likely not be enough votes in the Senate for a special session to override the veto. He says the veto will be an issue for legislation the governor proposes in the next session, and they will continue to bring up legislation in the House to force the issue. “And the Senate is going to figure out. What they’re going. To do about, you know, they tried for over four years. They stopped the will of the people through their elected representatives to address this issue, they hid behind process and refuse to let legislation come to the floor and now the chickens have come home to roost in the Senate. They’ve got a civil war going on in the Senate, they’ve attack one another,” Holt says.

The bill the governor vetoed would have put limits on the use of eminent domain for pipelines. The governor says the bill was too broad and would impact other projects outside of carbon pipelines.