By Kennedy Maize
North Dakota proclaims, “Give us your tired, your poor, your captured carbon dioxide that never will run free.”
South Dakota retorts, “Not across our state.”
Iowa, from a distance, chimes in, “Nor here.”
Last December, North Dakota’s Industrial Commission, headed by outgoing Republican Governor Doug Burgum, approved a plan by Iowa’s Summit Carbon Solutions for a pipeline to ship carbon dioxide emissions from 57 coal-burning ethanol plants in the region to the Peace Garden State for underground storage and enhanced recovery of oil and gas.
Burgum, who President Trump named interior secretary and crowned as “energy czar,” whatever that means, has long been a fan of CO2 capture and storage. In 2021, beginning his second term as governor, he announced a state goal of “carbon neutrality” by 2030.
Bloomberg commented, “Burgum is obsessive about carbon capture. He’s become the technology’s chief evangelist in North Dakota.”
Congress in 2005’s Energy Policy Act created a mandate for including ethanol in the U.S. supply of gasoline, largely a subsidiary to U.S. corn growers. The ethanol mandate expanded in 2007. A University of Iowa economist described the ethanol mandate as “a way to dispose, essentially, of an ever-growing, ever-increasing amount of corn.”
The Biden administration’s 2021 Inflation Reduction Act boosted the ethanol industry by pushing carbon capture and storage. The new law offered an $85 per metric ton subsidy for geologic carbon sequestration. Ethanol producers could now get paid not only for the ethanol used in gasoline but also for their CO2 emissions.
The Biden legislation also created an opportunity for a new industry. In 2021, Summit Agricultural Group, a conventional ag business formed in 1990 by hog farmer Bruce Rastetter, with investors including oil and gas magnate Harold Hamm, a successful fracking wildcatter in North Dakota’s Bakken oil field, formed Summit Carbon Solutions in Ames, Iowa.
The new company quickly rolled out a $9 billion project to gather the CO2 from 57 ethanol plants, move it across Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, and bury it in North Dakota.
Among the key staff of Summit Carbon Solutions: Lawyer Jeff Vilsack, son of Tom Vilsack, former Iowa governor and agriculture secretary in the Obama and Biden administrations, and Terry Branstad, long-serving former Iowa Republican governor and ambassador to China in the first Trump administration.
While the interstate carbon dioxide pipeline company has experience and connections, particularly in Iowa and North Dakota, it has hit on public opposition in the states where it plans to operate, particularly in South Dakota.
On March 6, South Dakota Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden signed a bill from the Republican legislature than bans the use state eminent domain authority for carbon dioxide pipelines.
The FastDemocracy online bill tracker describes HB 1052: “This bill establishes a new legal provision in South Dakota that prohibits the exercise of eminent domain for the purpose of acquiring right-of-way, constructing, or operating pipelines primarily intended for the transportation of carbon oxide. The legislation aims to restrict the use of eminent domain, which allows the government to take private property for public use, specifically in the context of carbon oxide pipelines.
“The new section added to chapter 49-7 explicitly states that, regardless of any other laws, individuals or entities cannot invoke eminent domain for these specific pipeline projects. This measure reflects a growing concern over the environmental and property rights implications of carbon oxide transportation infrastructure.”
While the legislation does not mention Summit Carbon, the company clearly was the target. The Sioux Falls Argues Leader reported, “Summit Carbon, which has worked to obtain a construction permit since 2022, has faced stiff opposition in South Dakota, largely from rural, conservative landowners whose properties would be affected.
“The company attempted to claim its right to the use of eminent domain when it filed more than 80 eminent domain lawsuits against South Dakota landowners in April 2023. About 160 South Dakotans were sued in the company’s pursuit of acquiring land easements, with most of those landowners declining to work with the company.”
Summit Carbon on Mar. 12 filed a petition with the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission to suspend its application for pipeline construction “indefinitely,” asking “that the proceedings be paused for review and adjustment of the schedule until such time as the Applicant is prepared to proceed.”
The Summit Carbon project is also drawing fire in its home state. Radio station KMA reported last week (Mar. 19) that “Iowa landowners and pipeline fighters gathered Tuesday at a rally in the Iowa Capitol Rotunda asking lawmakers to ban eminent domain for carbon dioxide pipelines. Senate Democrats also pushed for an amendment that would help pipeline and eminent domain bills go to the floor for debate.
“The protesters have opposed a large carbon sequestration pipeline, headed by Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions, for several years. The opponents have significant support in the Iowa House, which advanced more than 10 related bills ahead of the legislative funnel deadline, but Iowa senators have historically allowed similar bills to stall in their chambers.”
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