Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

A public policy dispute over plans for about 1,000 miles of carbon dioxide pipeline across Iowa took a concerning turn last week. The pipeline company’s latest tactic demonstrates why Iowa should finally enact an anti-SLAPP statute that has been floating around the legislature for a few years.

Cami Koons reported for Iowa Capital Dispatch that Summit Carbon Solutions, an Ames company co-founded by businessman Bruce Rastetter, sent letters to six opponents of its plans to use eminent domain authority to build the pipeline. With eminent domain, Summit could force landowners along the route to sell easements to the company so it could bury the proposed 2-foot-diameter pipe across their land.

The letters demand the recipients retract what Summit claims are false and defamatory statements the six critics have made and cease making similar comments in the future. The letters warn recipients their statements have “exposed you to significant legal liability.”

Jared Strong reported for the Cedar Rapids Gazette that the known recipients are Steve King, the former congressman from Kiron; Jess Mazour of Des Moines, a staffer of the Sierra Club Iowa chapter; Barb Kalbach of Dexter and Tom Mohan of Cedar Rapids, both members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement; Robert Nazario of Iowa Falls, like King, a member of the Free Soil Foundation; and Trent Loos, a farmer and podcaster from Litchfield, Nebraska.

The Summit Carbon project and the underlying eminent domain controversy are textbook examples of the kind of public policy issues the nation’s founders had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment in 1789. Freedom of speech was added to the Constitution to ensure people had the right in the new nation to offer their observations and opinions on important public policy matters. 

But what Summit is trying to do—silence critics with large followings—goes against the spirit of the Constitution’s free speech guarantees. Summit’s implied threats of litigation, whether real or hollow, could chill future public comment by people, businesses and organizations opposed to the controversial pipeline.

This new tactic by Summit demonstrates why the Iowa legislature should finally pass an anti-SLAPP statute. Thirty-three states have enacted such laws in recent years.

Retaliatory lawsuits like those Summit is threatening against its six critics can have a profound effect on citizens’ freedom of speech. If Summit followed through on its implicit threat and sued the six—even if the individuals ultimately won in court—the cost of mounting that defense could be staggering.

Such lawsuits often are brought to intimidate citizens from speaking out on matters of public concern or to intimidate journalists from reporting on important policy issues.

Anti-SLAPP laws derive their name from the acronym that stands for “strategic lawsuits against public participation.” These laws do not prevent plaintiffs from filing libel or defamation cases. Instead, anti-SLAPP laws typically establish an expedited process for judges to decide lawsuits arising from people or businesses exercising First Amendment rights on matters of public concern. 

Under an anti-SLAPP bill that stalled in the legislature in 2021, if such defamation or libel cases are decided in favor of the defendants the person or business bringing the lawsuit—often a plaintiff with deep pockets or ulterior motives—would be responsible for reimbursing the defendants’ reasonable attorney fees.

The statements in issue in Summit’s letters to the six critics hardly could have caused a loss of reputation or community standing by a company that includes the word “Solutions” in its corporate name.

For example, a statement by one critic accusing the Iowa Utilities Commission of “collusion” to deny landowners’ property rights, or a remark by another critic that carbon pipelines could prove lethal, look far closer to opinion or hyperbole instead of declarations of demonstrable facts.

The late Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Cady said it well in a 2014 decision. That Supreme Court ruling came in a case involving Rick Bertrand, a candidate for an Iowa Senate seat in Woodbury County, who sued his opponent, Rick Mullin, over the content of campaign ads Mullin purchased.

Cady wrote in the court’s 5-0 decision in Mullin’s favor: “The First Amendment protects the use of ‘rhetorical hyperbole’ and ‘imaginative expression’ designed to evoke contempt for the targets of protected speech. After all, ridicule is often the strongest weapon in the hands of a public writer.”

In the case of Summit’s pipeline proposal, Mazour told the N’West Iowa Review last year, “Summit is using its power to take away democracy and people’s rights. They are in collusion with the Iowa Utilities Board to do so.”

She told Iowa Capital Dispatch last week, “This is clearly an intimidation attempt just to keep us quiet and hamper our free speech rights.”

King told Waterloo radio station KXEL last week, “These are just simply threats that say, ‘Shut up or we’ll sue you because we don’t like the truth and what it does to damage our business model.’ ”

The pipeline project is “the biggest boondoggle the world has ever seen,” King told KXEL listeners, because it would be paid for with billions of dollars of federal tax incentives and would erode the property rights of landowners if Summit is allowed to use eminent domain power.

King, Mazour, and the other recipients of Summit’s cease-and-desist letters probably believe a little dose of President Harry Truman is needed in this freedom-of-speech controversy: If a pipeline company cannot stand the heat of public debate, perhaps it should stay out of the mess hall.

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Top image is by Sayuri I, available via Shutterstock.