A Republican lawmaker took to the Senate floor Tuesday to ask GOP leaders to allow a vote on a bill to limit eminent domain for carbon pipelines.
For the past few years, the House has passed bills in response to concerns about the use of eminent domain for carbon capture pipelines. This is the first year that the Senate has advanced one of those bills through a committee — though pipeline opponents don’t support Senate changes to that bill.
Sen. Lynn Evans, R-Aurelia, gave a speech urging his colleagues to push Republican leaders to allow the full Senate to publicly vote on a bill aimed at protecting private property rights.
“We need to know how many people are in support of this. We better all be in support of it, every one of us. Doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican or Democrat; we took an oath to support the U.S. Constitution.”
Democrats criticized Republicans for not joining their recent effort to change Senate rules to let senators bring a pipeline bill up for a vote. They say there’s enough bipartisan support to get it passed in the Senate and that Republicans are playing games with the issue.