Couser v. Story County

A lawsuit filed in the federal district court for the Southern District of Iowa challenged an ordinance passed by the Story County Board of Supervisors that establishes setback and other requirements for hazardous materials pipelines, including carbon dioxide pipelines. The plaintiffs were (1) the developer of a proposed interstate carbon dioxide pipeline to transport carbon dioxide captured from ethanol and fertilizer plants and deliver it to sequestration sites in North Dakota and (2) a farmer and part-owner of an ethanol production facility in Story County. The complaint alleged that the pipeline would allow the ethanol production facility to ship its ethanol to the California and Pacific Northwest markets and that without the pipeline and availability of carbon sequestration, the carbon intensity of the ethanol produced at the facility would be too high for those markets, which have low carbon fuel standards. The plaintiffs alleged that the federal Pipeline Safety Act and Iowa state law preempted the county ordinance.

Affirming two district court decisions in this case and in a <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/case/couser-v-shelby-county/">case</a> against Shelby County, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the federal Pipeline Safety Act (PSA) and Iowa state law preempted the two Iowa counties’ ordinances that would regulate portions of a planned pipeline for transporting carbon dioxide across five states. The Eighth Circuit ruled that the ordinances’ setback and emergency response provisions were safety standards preempted by the PSA. The Eighth Circuit also found that an abandonment provision within one county’s ordinance fell within the scope of the PSA, “which extends to abandoned and discontinued pipelines.” The Eighth Circuit also held that Iowa’s law on hazardous liquid pipelines preempted county permitting and trenchless construction requirements because the counties’ higher standards made the requirements inconsistent with the state law, which delegated permitting power to the Iowa Utilities Commission that was “singular, sweeping, and cedes nothing to the counties.”