Brenna Bird abandons Iowans

Friday, Sep 13 2024 by Anna Ryon

Anna Ryon is a Des Moines attorney who practices in the field of utility consumer advocacy. Her experience includes nearly nine years of service at the Iowa Office of Consumer Advocate.

When Brenna Bird was elected attorney general, she took an oath to faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of her office, as state law requires. The official website of the Iowa Department of Justice describes the attorney general as “the state’s chief legal officer.” In that capacity, it is reasonable for Bird to know what duties she is required by law to discharge.

However, Bird’s record suggests she either does not understand all the duties the law requires her to discharge or has simply chosen not to fulfill some of those duties. Her failure to discharge the duties required by law has left Iowa landowners subject to unconstitutional eminent domain and their neighbors subject to the dangers of hazardous carbon dioxide pipelines without the legal representation they deserve.

The consumer advocate division of the department of justice, or the Office of Consumer Advocate (“OCA”), was created in Iowa Code Section 475A. Prior to the government reorganization bill passed by the legislature in 2023, OCA was an independent “separate division” of the department of justice. At that time, OCA was shielded from political influences because the attorney general nominated the Consumer Advocate, and after Iowa Senate confirmation, the advocate was subject to removal only for “malfeasance or nonfeasance.”

Since the government reorganization bill was enacted in 2023, OCA is merely a “division of the department of justice,” with the same status as any other division of the Attorney General’s office. Additionally, the Consumer Advocate now serves “at the pleasure of the attorney general.”

In other words, Brenna Bird is now entirely in control of OCA and its actions.

One thing the government reorganization bill didn’t change is OCA’s duty, which is to“[r]epresent the interests of all consumers generally and the public generally in all proceedings before the utilities board.” That duty extends to judicial appeals of decisions by the Iowa Utilities Board, recently renamed the Iowa Utilities Commission (IUC). Iowa Code Section 475A.2(4) requires OCA to “[a]ppear for all consumers generally and the public generally in all actions instituted in any state or federal court which involve the validity of a rule, regulation, or order of the utilities board.”

But Bird’s public statements about the role of “her lawyers” are those of an attorney general who either doesn’t know about OCA’s duties or who doesn’t want her constituents to know she controls OCA.

On August 15, Bird concealed her obligation to represent the interests of Iowans when she discussed IUC decisions in remarks at the Westside Conservative Club (listen to the audio here). At that meeting, she was asked about state agencies that overreach their authority. Specifically, Robert Nazario asked her about the IUC’s grant of a hazardous liquid pipeline permit to Summit Carbon Solutions, with permission to use eminent domain to build a carbon dioxide pipeline.

Bird correctly explained that the Department of Justice has a different role with respect to the IUC than with respect to other agencies. Unlike other agencies, the Department of Justice does not represent the IUC when its decisions are appealed. Bird therefore asserted that her office has no role in an appeal of the IUC’s decision to grant Summit’s permit.

That statement is blatantly false.

OCA’s statutory duty to represent the interests of Iowans specifically includes representing those interests in judicial appeals of IUC decisions, according to Iowa Code Section 475A.2(4). Bird either knows her statement is false (and is deliberately misleading Iowans), or she doesn’t understand the statutory duty of the Office of Consumer Advocate, which is directly under her control. In either case, Bird’s statement demonstrates she is not qualified to serve as the chief legal officer of Iowa.

Bird’s utter disregard for her obligation to represent the interests of Iowans is exacerbated by her choice of Consumer Advocate. She appointed Lanny Zieman to that position in March 2023. Zieman’s actions since assuming that job show he will not take any initiative to call Bird’s attention to OCA’s statutory obligations or push for the Department of Justice to act on those obligations.

On August 26, Zieman represented OCA at a public information meeting in Corning for IUC Docket HLP-2024-0004—a petition by SCS Carbon Transport, LLC to construct a lateral pipeline to carry carbon dioxide from POET’s Corning ethanol plant through Adams and Montgomery Counties to connect with the already-approved carbon dioxide pipeline.

As someone who considers Adams County to be my home, I asked Zieman what OCA would do to represent the interests of the general public in Adams County in that docket. His response was revealing: it was nonexistent.

Zieman’s lack of response in Corning is consistent with OCA’s performance in docket HLP-2021-0001, in which the IUC approved Summit’s initial petition for a permit to construct a carbon dioxide pipeline and use eminent domain to acquire easements. In that case, OCA presented only a single witness: Scott Bents, an engineer. He testified that Summit’s pipeline offers positive economic benefits (see pages 20 and 21 of his direct testimony).

Rather than have one of the highly qualified accountants or economists who work at OCA testify to the business model or economic impacts of Summit’s proposed pipeline, Zieman put someone unqualified to testify about economics on the witness stand to allege that the pipeline has economic benefits. Following the evidentiary hearing, which lasted 83 days and resulted in 7,499 pages of transcripts, in addition to thousands of pages of pre-filed testimony, OCA failed even to take a position about whether the proposed pipeline satisfied the statutory requirement under Iowa Code Section 479B.9 that the project “promote the public convenience and necessity.”

Instead, OCA simply concluded, “The Board must weigh evidence of benefits against evidence of the public and private costs and other detriments.” OCA’s final position on the central issue of the case was to simply repeat the question at issue in the case.

The failure to do anything more than merely identify the issue in the case is utterly inconsistent with the role of the Office of Consumer Advocate, for reasons that OCA’s name should make clear. OCA’s perfunctory participation in IUC Docket HLP-2021-0001 fell far short of OCA’s duty to represent the interests of Iowans.

 

Read More: https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2024/09/13/brenna-bird-abandons-iowans/