Iowa counties petition U.S. Supreme Court over pipeline safety authority
Story and Shelby counties in Iowa have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review their case challenging federal preemption of local pipeline safety ordinances — the latest development in a multiyear legal dispute involving Summit Carbon Solutions and its planned carbon sequestration pipeline across the state.
According to KCCI News, the counties originally adopted ordinances in 2022 establishing setback requirements and other safety-related provisions for the project. Summit Carbon Solutions sued soon after, arguing that federal law under the Pipeline Safety Act supersedes local regulations governing pipeline safety.
A federal judge ruled in Summit’s favor in 2023, barring the counties from enforcing the ordinances. That decision was upheld by a federal appeals court in June 2025, which reaffirmed that local governments cannot impose safety standards on pipelines regulated under federal law.
In their petition filed Friday, the counties’ attorneys asked the Supreme Court to resolve what they described as “a square conflict over what counts as a preempted ‘safety standard’ under the Pipeline Safety Act," KCCI News reported.
Summit Carbon Solutions has not commented publicly on the petition. The company’s proposed pipeline would transport captured carbon dioxide across multiple Midwest states to underground storage sites, part of a growing network of carbon capture and storage (CCS) infrastructure under federal review.
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