FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (June 11th, 2025)

Iowa Governor Reynolds Betrays Farm Families: Libertarian Party Condemns Government-Sanctioned Land Theft

 

Des Moines, IA (06/11/2025) – The Libertarian Party of Iowa denounces Governor Kim Reynolds’ veto of House File 639 today as an unconscionable betrayal that will allow corporations to steal Iowa family farms through government force.

“Governor Reynolds just signed the death warrant for Iowa family farms,” said Jules Cutler, Chair of the Libertarian Party of Iowa. “While she talks about Iowa values, she’s handing over the keys to bulldozers that will destroy century-old homesteads for corporate profit. This is government-sanctioned theft, plain and simple.”

Four Years of Lies While Families Face Ruin

Since 2021, Summit Carbon Solutions has been targeting Iowa farm families, threatening to seize land that has been in families for generations. Both parties had four years to stop this assault on Iowa agriculture. Instead, they failed spectacularly.

House Republicans passed meaningless bills they knew would die in the Senate. Senate Republicans blocked real reform for years while pretending to care about farmers. Democrats created the federal subsidy scheme through Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act that makes these corporate land grabs profitable in the first place.

“Iowa family farmers trusted these politicians to protect their legacy,” Cutler said. “Instead, Republicans sold them out to their corporate donors, and Democrats built the federal gravy train that funds the destruction of rural Iowa. Both parties have blood on their hands.”

Iowa GOP Senate Leadership only acted at the end of this April when twelve Republican senators, including Sen. Jeff Taylor, who for many years had been a lone voice in his party, threatened to block budget bills—political brinksmanship, not principled leadership.

What the Vetoed Bill Would Have Done

HF 639 introduced key reforms:

• Required pipelines to be “common carriers” serving multiple entities
• Raised evidentiary standards for public use claims
• Mandated comprehensive insurance for affected landowners
• Capped pipeline permits at 25 years with no automatic renewal

Corporate Vultures Circle Iowa Farmland

Reynolds’ veto was immediately celebrated by corporate agriculture vultures like POET and the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association—the same special interests that have spent millions lobbying to exploit Biden’s federal tax credit schemes. These corporations don’t care about Iowa families; they care about cashing government checks while destroying rural communities.

“This is legalized robbery,” Cutler said. “Democrats write checks to corporations with taxpayer money, Republicans provide the legal framework to steal family land, and Iowa farmers get crushed in between. The two-party system isn’t broken—it’s working exactly as designed to benefit the connected and powerful.”

Libertarians: The Only Party Fighting for Farm Families

While Republicans and Democrats spent four years betraying Iowa farmers, the Libertarian Party has consistently demanded:

• An immediate end to all eminent domain abuse
• The elimination of federal corporate welfare programs that bankroll attacks on rural Iowa
• Restoration of local control over land use and the freedom to innovate with alternative crops

“Iowa farmers built this state with their bare hands,” Cutler said. “Now career politicians are selling their heritage to the highest bidder. The Libertarian Party will fight for every acre, every family, and every farm threatened by this government-corporate alliance. South Dakota voters figured it out—they threw out the politicians who sold them out, and we won’t stop until every last one of these land thieves is driven out of Iowa.”

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The Libertarian Party of Iowa is committed to America’s heritage of freedom: individual liberty and personal responsibility, a free-market economy of abundance and prosperity, a foreign policy of non-intervention, peace, and free trade.

For media inquiries or additional information, please contact:

Libertarian Party of Iowa
Email: info@lpia.org
Phone: (515) 423-0093