We're fighting for our homes and our land, and for the safety of South Dakota communities just like yours. But we can't do this alone, we need your help, so if you can, pitch in and let's make some hay.
We're fighting for our homes and our land, and for the safety of South Dakota communities just like yours. But we can't do this alone, we need your help, by being informed and taking action when it matters most.
FORT PIERRE, S.D. — A carbon dioxide sequestration pipeline that may ferry climate-heating gas from the stacks of ethanol plants to burial points deep in Illinois rock bed may soon need Minnesota’s approval. But first, the project must clear South Dakota regulators.
And the farmers attending last month’s hearing in a rodeo museum were firmly opposed.
“We’re all pro-ethanol,” said Kay Burkhart, who farms outside Valley Springs, S.D., which hugs the Minnesota state line. “But they’re going to force us to sign an easement that we don’t want to sign.”
A billion-dollar-plus bet is afoot to dramatically lower corn ethanol’s carbon footprint by spider-webbing pipelines across the Upper Midwest. Omaha-based Navigator C02 and Iowa’s Summit Carbon Solutions aim to sell more biofuel in greenhouse-conscious California and Canada, as well as qualify for lucrative federal tax credits.
Signs opposing the proposed route of the Wolf Carbon Solutions captured carbon dioxide pipeline are seen along Ivanhoe Rd. near Ely, Iowa, on Wednesday, October 12, 2022. Signs opposing eminent domain, a method used to acquire land for projects like this, are also along Ivanhoe Rd. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)That could translate into a premium price for many Midwest farmers’ corn.
But to do so, they need to run pipe beneath private land, rivers and marshes.
For Burkhart and others, their opposition is largely over eminent domain. Under that legal authority, her land can be forcibly traversed for a court-approved sum of money — including by CO2 pipeline companies in South Dakota.
That’s not the case in Minnesota, where farmer sentiment is more mixed on the subject.
Under Minnesota statute, only natural gas and oil pipelines possess that authority. So far, that’s meant a world of difference in the attitudes toward the CO2 pipeline here compared to in Iowa and South Dakota. In those neighboring states, the proposal has stirred anger, with flurries of lawsuits, tense stand-offs between surveyors and landowners, and calls for legislative special sessions.
“You don’t have eminent domain, but you have running water and electricity in Minnesota?” asked Burkhart, who wishes South Dakota’s eminent domain law was more narrowly tailored. “How do you have civilization?”
The same farmers who could benefit financially often stand opposed to the idea of forced access to their land. Eminent domain is typically reserved for public projects or utilities and these CO2 pipelines are a private endeavor.
At least in Minnesota, the companies are obligated to pay farmers up-front for entirely voluntary easements.
“Every one of the other states we intend to operate in does provide a pathway to condemnation,” said Elizabeth Burns-Thompson, the vice president of government and public affairs with Navigator CO2. “Minnesota does not.”
From the exterior, the absence of this lever for the pipelines has seemingly made it easier, not harder for business because in principle, the approach feels less hostile.
Navigator says they’ve gathered “a bulk” of the easements in Minnesota, though they’ve yet to formally apply for a route permit from the state’s Public Utilities Commission.
Similarly, Summit Carbon, which has applied for a permit along one of the three branches it intends to build in Minnesota, says it’s netted nearly two-thirds of the private crossings in Minnesota — including more than 90 percent in Jackson and Otter Tail counties.
The companies declined to discuss whether they’ve paid Minnesotans more for easements. But Brian Jorde, an Omaha attorney representing landowners in South Dakota and Iowa, says Minnesota’s high legal barrier, at least in theory, means landowners are better protected.
“Where they have eminent domain and where they have survey laws that say we can do what we want, they’re just more like the Wild West,” Jorde said. “When the law protects people, corporations have to treat people better.”
By comparison, Navigator revealed before South Dakota’s public utilities commission that they’d secured only 30 percent of the necessary easements in that state.
But some Minnesotans are also passionately opposed to the CO2 pipelines.
At the first round of public listening sessions in western Minnesota earlier this year, and in public filings, opponents accused Summit of minimizing the safety risks of a pipeline rupture. One woman suggested the company bamboozled her infirm mother into signing a contract — a charge Summit’s CEO Jimmy Powell denies.
Peg Furshong, director of programs at Montevideo-based nonprofit Clean Up the River Environment (CURE), fears the company may use Minnesota as a prop for showing investors “some movement in the project.”
Earlier this month at FarmFest, Minnesota’s annual ag-industry gathering, workers at Summit Carbon booth mostly answered farmers’ polite questions.
“We’re working directly with the landowners,” said Scott O’Konek, a project manager. While Summit has sued dozens and dozens of landowners in South Dakota, they’ve needed to work “100 percent for voluntary easements” in Minnesota.
“Each landowner is met with and negotiated with,” O’Konek said. “A majority of the easements are [already] acquired.”
Standing not far away, Thom Petersen, Minnesota Department of Agriculture commissioner, acknowledged “farmers are really split.”
While Minnesota has “a really strong eminent domain law” for projects like the Enbridge Line 3 oil pipeline, which crossed northern Minnesota, Petersen said CO2 sequestration pipelines don’t qualify for the same legal authority. “[For] a private utility, it’s going to make it very difficult to take the land. So they need to negotiate fairly.”
Both CO2 pipelines are still a long way from breaking ground. Minnesota’s PUC will vote on a scope of survey on Aug. 31. Similarly, in Nebraska, the companies so far are seeking voluntary easements.
Summit’s hearings in Iowa and South Dakota begin within the month.
Kim Junker, who farms near Stout, Iowa, in Grundy County, speaks at an anti-carbon capture pipeline rally at the Iowa Capitol in Des Moines on Wednesday, March 22, 2023. Photo by Erin Murphy.
On the witness stand in Fort Pierre last month, a Navigator C02 executive told regulators his company will always first seek voluntary landowner easements.
“We strive not to go down that path,” said Chief Financial Officer Jeff Allen. “That is literally the last option available.”
But when pressed by Jorde on whether he would vow not to seek eminent domain should the pipeline be approved, Allen demurred.
In the audience, Valley Springs landowner Dan Nelson said he worries about carbon dioxide bursting out of a pipe would overtake campers at nearby Palisades State Park.
“You get a 10-mile-an-hour wind,” Nelson said, “it’ll follow the creek and be there in three and a half minutes.”
Nelson said he spoke with the local fire department about who’d answer such a call and was told the volunteers would phone Sioux Falls, which is a 30-minute drive away.
Nelson agreed he wasn’t concerned about ethanol’s future. It was safety consequences that scared him. Eminent domain, too.
“This is a private enterprise, and they want to go through our land with eminent domain,” Nelson said, taking off a baseball cap emblazoned with a Minnesota company’s logo.
Bismarck, ND (Bismarck Tribune) – North Dakota regulators who rejected a siting permit for Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed 2,000-mile interstate carbon dioxide storage pipeline made it clear the decision was not a judgment on the idea of storing climate-warming emissions underground.
“This is only about this project, in this location, under these circumstances,” Public Service Commission Chair Randy Christmann said after the PSC issued its decision Aug. 4.
The denial was not routine for a commission that sees 15-20 applications for pipelines of various sizes every year. PSC Director of Public Utilities Victor Schock said he is not aware of any other pipelines that have been rejected in his nine years working for the commission.
“It’s absolutely not the norm,” he said.
The commission cited several reasons for its decision, including that Summit had not adequately addressed how the project would impact sensitive areas including cultural sites, some wildlife areas and unstable geological areas. The PSC in its order also said that Summit “has not taken the steps to address outstanding legitimate impacts expressed by landowners during the public comment or demonstrated why a reroute is not feasible.”
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Iowa-based Summit previously said it planned to reapply and address the issues brought by the PSC. But Summit on Friday submitted a petition for reconsideration of the PSC’s Aug. 4 decision. The request presents numerous route adjustments and asks for a one-day hearing for witness testimony in support of its new plans.
If the PSC does not accept Summit’s motion for reconsideration and Summit has to reapply, another application process, upcoming new federal regulations and legal questions over where CO2 will be stored paints a picture of a long wait until construction can begin.
But Summit Executive Vice President Wade Boeshans said he does not believe the PSC decision “has a material impact on the overall schedule.”
Summit has said previously it expects the pipeline to be operational in 2024.
The North Dakota portion of the initial proposed route for the Midwest Carbon Express pipeline.PROVIDED
A lengthy process
The Midwest Carbon Express pipeline is to move CO2 emissions from dozens of ethanol plants in Nebraska, Iowa, the Dakotas and Minnesota and to western North Dakota’s Oliver County for permanent storage underground. The 320-mile route in North Dakota that the PSC rejected was to pass through Burleigh, Cass, Dickey, Emmons, Logan, McIntosh, Morton, Oliver, Richland and Sargent counties.
Summit submitted its siting application to the PSC in October 2022. The process entailed filing numerous forms, addressing the concerns of intervenors and attending five PSC public hearings held across the state.
This is a process that will have to begin again if Summit has to reapply.
The prior application took about 10 months to work its way through the process. Schock expects a similar timeline for any reapplication.
If Summit hopes to be approved it needs to properly address every issue the commission brought up in its order, according to Schock.
At a sparsely attended public open house that Summit held Monday to demonstrate the project’s safety, multiple company representatives attributed the route rejection to not enough communication from Summit with the PSC and landowners. They maintained that the company had the ability to, and would, address the concerns of all stakeholders.
Hearings for the project are set to begin later this month in Iowa and in September in South Dakota. Minnesota is in the midst of its permitting process. Nebraska does not have statewide regulations pertaining to CO2 pipelines but counties can enact local ordinances.
A North Dakota Public Service Commission public hearing June 2 on Summit Carbon Solutions’ planned Midwest Carbon Express pipeline drew a large crowd. The hearing was in Russell Reid Auditorium at the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum on the Capitol grounds in Bismarck.TOM STROMME, TRIBUNE
Reroutes, big and small
Summit must demonstrate that the project poses minimal risk to the environment and the welfare of North Dakota residents to gain PSC approval.
Some form of a reroute likely will be necessary unless the company can prove there are no other options or that it addressed the specific factors the commission took issue with along the initial proposed route, according to Schock.
“They need to present a document or a witness that’s able to be cross-examined,” he said.
Schock said Summit did not provide this for many of the issues under contention in its previous application.
“There were a lot of things where it’s possible that the company already rectified, but it’s not in the record,” he said.
Some changes to the route will be more straightforward than others. The company will have to account for many of the avoidance areas that the PSC expressed concern over — such as those with geological instability highlighted by the state Geological Survey as well as some wildlife management areas.
Boeshans said he could not speak directly to the Tribune regarding these specific issues but that the company is in the process of addressing them with the PSC.
Other elements of a reroute may be more substantial. The originally proposed route put the pipeline just 2 miles outside of Bismarck’s extraterritorial area at its closest point, sparking concerns that it would impede the city’s growth to the north and east. The commission found that while some intervenors stretched the likelihood of adverse effects on property values, Summit had not adequately minimized these potential impacts.
Summit’s request for reconsideration states those concerns are moot because the company has an alternative route for north of Bismarck that is now 5 miles north of the city’s extraterritorial area.
Summit ruled out a southern Bismarck route after the PSC requested the company analyze one. Summit cited the goal of avoiding Dakota Access Pipeline-type protests along with other geographic and cultural concerns.
Schock said the primary issue with the analysis was that Summit did not sufficiently explain why another route was not feasible. He said the story may have played out differently had the document been submitted to the record for the PSC to cross-examine at a hearing.
Prior to Summit sending in a reconsideration, Boeshans said all potential routes would be back under consideration, including a southern route, but he said pushing the project farther north is preferable. Summit claims in its petition that the issue of a southern route is now moot, given it believes its reroute addresses the north-Bismarck landowners’ concerns, but it is willing to offer a witness to testify to the issues with a southern route.
Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Archeologist Tyrell Iron Eyes testified at a public hearing in June that moving the pipeline route south of Bismarck would place it in treaty territory. That was an issue during the DAPL protests, with Native Americans maintaining the route was on land that was rightfully theirs under an 1851 treaty agreement broken by the U.S. government.
The costs are in the millions for every extra mile of pipeline laid. Crossing new properties also means working to obtain new easement agreements with landowners.
Summit said it has secured easements with 80% of landowners across the route in North Dakota.
Every landowner who has signed an easement agreement has already received the compensation provided for in their contracts, and the landowners will keep the money, according to Boeshans.
North Dakota Public Service Commissioner Sheri Haugen-Hoffart, left, Commissioner Randy Christmann, center, and Administrative Law Judge Tim Dawson on Aug. 4 detail their reasoning for rejecting a route permit for Summit Carbon Solutions’ Midwest Carbon Express carbon dioxide pipeline.JOEY HARRIS
New regulations
A new siting application would push the project’s start date closer to when new federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration regulations regarding CO2 pipelines are expected to be in place. A draft of these is expected in June 2024.
PHMSA regulates pipelines in the U.S. The agency set out to update regulations after a CO2 pipeline operated by Denbury Gulf Coast Pipelines ruptured in 2020 near Satartia, Mississippi, resulting in 45 people seeking hospital care.
Many who expressed opposition to Summit’s siting application in North Dakota pressed the PSC to not approve the project until new regulations were in place. The PSC said compliance with PHMSA regulations are outside of the commission’s jurisdiction.
Boeshans said current regulations will allow for Summit to build a safe pipeline.
“All the root causes of (the Satartia) failure are addressed in the current set of regulations,” he said.
Summit Project Manager Aaron Eldridge said even if there are new PHMSA regulations that the company does not anticipate, pipeline operators have been able to adjust to new standards in the past without upgrading infrastructure.
Boeshans said much of the public’s concern over the project was due to misinformation and misunderstanding about CO2.
“The facts are there’s 5,000 miles of CO2 pipelines operating in the U.S. today, and of all (pipelines) operating in the U.S., CO2 lines have the best safety record,” he said.
Experts say there are different considerations necessary for CO2 pipelines.
CO2 is odorless, colorless and an asphyxiant that displaces oxygen, which can cause breathing problems and hamper emergency responses because most vehicles require oxygen to run. CO2 does not burn, but it is heavier than air, and once a rupture occurs it could spread near the ground undetected.
There is no standard potential impact radius for a CO2 pipeline leak, according to Kenneth Clarkson, spokesman for the watchdog group Pipeline Safety Trust. Since the dissipation and dispersion of CO2 is dependent on geography, weather and atmospheric conditions, it has the potential to spread to a greater area than other types of gases, he said.
The PSC on Aug. 4 denied requests to make Summit’s dispersion model public information, accepting the company’s arguments that the model is a security system plan for critical infrastructure.
Rod Dillon, director of regulatory compliance at Summit, said the company is accounting for all of the safety issues. Summit will utilize an operations control center in Ames, Iowa, that will allow for constant monitoring of the pipeline. This will give operators the ability to remotely shut off valves in 30 seconds, according to Dillon.
He said there also will be continuous monitoring of atmospheric conditions in order to determine where and how far a leak could travel, and that Summit plans to regularly train first responders in every county along the route.
North Dakota Public Service Commission attorney Zachary Pelham, left, and Victor Schock listen to Jimmy Powell, chief operating officer for Summit Carbon Solutions, testify at a March 14 hearing for Summit’s proposed carbon dioxide pipeline. The hearing at the North Dakota Heritage Center in Bismarck was the first of five public hearings for the project.DARREN GIBBINS, TRIBUNE
Storage snags
A lawsuit brought by a state landowner’s group may create complications for Summit beyond the pipeline.
CO2 storage requires access to small cavities below the ground called pore space, which is the part of the subsurface that is porous enough for liquid and gas to flow through. Summit says it has signed easements with the owners of around 90% of the pore space at the Oliver County site.
The permitting of storage facilities is under the authority of the state Industrial Commission made up of the governor, the attorney general and the agriculture commissioner.
CO2 gas cannot be blocked off from the pore space of one part of a storage facility, so the company needs permission to use all of the pore space in question. If not every pore space owner agrees, the Industrial Commission relies on a process called amalgamation.
North Dakota law says for amalgamation to occur, owners of at least 60% of pore space must consent to easements and the storage facility operator must make a “good-faith effort” to get the consent of all landowners. Those who do not sign easements are to be “equitably compensated.”
The Northwest Landowners Association has filed a lawsuit against the state arguing that amalgamation is a taking of land, and for the state to engage in a taking of land, it must file eminent domain proceedings with landowners. Eminent domain is the taking of private property for public use, with just compensation. This includes hearings to determine what is a “just” compensation.
If the lawsuit is successful, there could be a potential for relitigating certain takings, according to Derrick Braaten, the group’s attorney.
This means that even in the event that Summit is able to acquire a storage facility prior to a decision on the lawsuit, a win by the landowners group may mean the company would have to file eminent domain cases to use the pore space of landowners who don’t sign easements.
Summit filed to intervene in this suit. Basin Electric Power Cooperative and Minnkota Power Cooperative, which respectively operate and plan to operate carbon storage facilities, also intervened.
Separately, Summit signed an agreement in 2022 to co-develop carbon storage facilities in and around Oliver County with Minnkota.
Minnkota is finishing up the process of deciding whether it will go ahead with construction of Project Tundra, which would be the country’s largest CO2 storage project, capturing emissions from the Milton R. Young Station, a coal-fired power plant in Oliver County.
An application for Minnkota’s third storage facility will be headed to the Industrial Commission for approval in the coming months, according to state Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms.
Minnkota’s application for the facility says the proposed site will be primarily used for CO2 emissions from the Milton R. Young Station, but if there is remaining pore space it will market that to third-party sources.
Boeshans has told the Tribune there are “no firm commitments to deliver CO2 to” the facility.
PEORIA (25News Now) – Advocates and survivors of a pipeline rupture say no to the CO2 pipeline installment plan.
Saturday afternoon, the Southside Peoria Nourish Group and Central Illinois Healthy Community Alliance hosted a Citizens Against Predatory Pipelines presentation and panel at the Peoria Public Library.
Two companies, Wolf Carbon Solutions, and Navigator CO2 Ventures, are trying to push multiple pipeline projects through Illinois…which includes Peoria County.
But those speaking for the panel, and many of the residents in attendance, are questioning the health and safety of their communities.
Debra’e Burns suffered CO2 poisoning in 2020 after he was exposed to large amounts of CO2 after the pipeline in his hometown of Satartia, Mississippi, burst.
“I don’t want y’all to be afraid. We didn’t know what was going to happen, but you guys do,” said Burns.
He says he was coming home from a fishing trip with his family when he saw an explosion just a quarter of a mile from the car they were driving in. He described it as a mushroom cloud.
“I had 17 seconds to call my mom and tell her we were on our way to pick her up because a pipeline blew up,” said Burns. “But by the time we turned on our road, our car just shut off and went dead. After the car shut off, we went out. I woke up at the hospital about 3 hours later.”
Burns was rescued by a first responder from the next County over, Jerry Briggs. He described Satartia that day as a ghost town.
“The world just stopped, and everybody was gone,” Burns said. “Headlights were still on in cars sitting in the middle of the highway.”
Briggs said when he found Burns and his family, he thought they were dead.
“They were foaming at the mouth, and one of them had a drink in their hand, resting on their knee, and it was still there,” described Briggs. “It was like they were frozen in place.”
Daurice Coaster, the founder of Nourish Group and a Peoria County resident, says her home is less than a mile from the proposed route.
After hearing Burns’s story and doing her own research, she doesn’t want to risk her safety.
“I’m standing for myself, my neighbors, my community, and I’m saying no. I cannot think of one good idea to entertain a pipeline,” said Coaster.
The senior vice president of Wolf Carbon Solutions, Nick Noppinger, previously told 25 News that they stand by their safety record and plan to communicate with local first responders on what to do in the event of a rupture.
Opinion, Steve Milloy (Washington Examiner) – Wall Street giant BlackRock just added the CEO of Saudi Arabia ’s national oil company, Saudi Aramco, to its board of directors. The New York Times headline announcing the move read, “BlackRock Forges New Ties With Big Oil,” giving the impression that BlackRock was reversing course on environmental, social, and governance investing and coming to its senses on fossil fuels.
The exact opposite is the case. This is just the latest chapter in the tragic and ongoing tale of America being sold out by the elites for the economic and geopolitical benefit of foreign competitors.
Part of Chairman and CEO Larry Fink’s strategy is to reposition BlackRock as oil-friendly by adding the Saudi Aramco CEO to BlackRock’s board. BlackRock and the rest of the ESG cartel have attracted much negative attention from red state attorneys general — attention that Fink is clearly trying to deflect.
But not only is Saudi Aramco not a U.S. oil company, it is actually hostile to the U.S. oil industry and its ability to dominate the global oil market. This should come as no surprise since an energy-independent U.S. means less profit and control for OPEC, of which Saudi Arabia is a founding member. So what we really have with ESG-loving BlackRock joining hands with the anti-U.S. oil Saudi Aramco is a potent merger of foes of the U.S. oil industry.
BlackRock’s scheme is not a novel one. It is already being implemented by Norway. While Norway and its state-owned oil company plan to produce all the oil they can, the state-run Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is pushing the anti-oil ESG agenda with U.S. oil companies, thereby undermining any effort to make Norway less dependent on foreign energy.
With BlackRock, OPEC, and the Biden administration’s crushing regulatory agenda lined up against the U.S. oil industry and its ability to keep oil prices low, America and its economy are in deep trouble.
Adding to the concern should be another problem spotlighted in a recent New York Times op-ed entitled, “America Can’t Build a Green Economy Without China.” Worse, we are not even trying to build one without communist China. Biden’s climate agenda requires dependence on China’s mines and processes for the necessary metals and minerals. We are already dependent on China for green technology, and our addiction is getting worse with no chance in sight of independence.
The U.S. needs to return to the policies introduced under former President Donald Trump, which helped wean our economy off the global oil market and restore America as a leading energy producer. We cannot afford to rely on nations that are financially or ideologically opposed to U.S. dominance.
Congress recently took an interest in Saudi Arabia’s effort to dominate professional golf. Maybe a hearing or two is in order concerning the four-headed beast at the gates of our economy and security.
Steve Milloy is a senior legal fellow with the Energy and Environment Legal Institute.
Opinion, Rep. Doug Lamborn (Washington Examiner) – The Biden administration is systematically removing every acre of working land that it can. Historically, preservationists have been pleased with national parks, wilderness areas, and national monuments, while conservationists have relied on U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land for their needs. If the current administration has its way, this balance will not last long.
In my home state of Colorado , the Bureau of Land Management has proposed removing 1.6 million acres of federal land from oil and gas leasing and is designating tens of thousands more acres as “Areas of Environmental Critical Concern” that will no longer be available for use. This rule would kill thousands of jobs, obliterate an entire industry, and spike energy prices for people across the country. Unfortunately, this draconian decision is not unprecedented for this administration.
In May, the Department of Interior released a proposed rule that would allow conservation groups to lease federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management, effectively preventing all industry from accessing it. This rule stands in stark contrast to the bureau’s multiple-use policy. In June, the administration withdrew 336,404 acres of federal mineral estate surrounding the Chaco Canyon National Historic Park, and just days ago, the Biden administration announced it would lock up a staggering 1.1 million acres in Arizona to be a national monument. This has all occurred on top of the administration’s refusal to issue almost any off or onshore leases.
The administration has done all of this for two reasons. The first is supposedly to protect the sage grouse, which is an endangered bird that lives on the western plains. The second, and more underhanded, reason is to obliterate the fossil fuel industry in America.
Every environmental and energy policy that the administration has put in place is to fulfill President Joe Biden’s promise to end fossil fuels in the United States. This includes banning gas stoves , removing helium from the critical minerals list, stopping all oil and gas lease sales, and now removing working land from energy development. The Biden administration is actively doing everything it can to prevent fossil fuels from providing reliable, affordable energy to millions of people.
Yet oil and gas production has existed hand in hand with responsible environmental stewardship. Colorado’s elk herd is the largest in the nation and has increased from 40,000 elk in the early 1900s to 300,000 today. Colorado’s mule deer population has grown by 40,000 since 2018, and Colorado’s population of antelope has grown from 5,000 in the 1940s to 85,000 today.
The Biden administration claims to protect the sage grouse through this drastic action, but this species has experienced a 24% increase in its Colorado population since 2019. Not only has gas production not impeded the restoration of these birds, but they have flourished in a shared environment. Colorado is the fourth-largest producer of oil and eighth-largest natural gas producer in the country. This supply is crucial in keeping energy prices down for people across the country and must continue while we restore our natural areas.
If Biden officials were serious about mitigating harm to wildlife, they would look closely at how we use our land acreage. The U.S. has lost over 24 million acres of natural areas and 11 million acres of farmland since 2001 due to urban development, which has hurt endangered species far more than oil and gas production. According to the Interior Department, in 2018, U.S. oil and gas hit a record production high while using the smallest amount of surface acreage disturbance in our nation’s history by utilizing horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. In contrast, the Bureau of Land Management recently announced a whopping 1,000-acre solar farm in the De Tilla Gulch region of Colorado, which takes up far more critical habitat than oil and natural gas while producing less electricity. This is an irresponsible use of taxpayer dollars and inappropriate stewardship of our nation’s wild areas.
The reality is clear: Oil and gas production does not hinder wildlife restoration, but irresponsible land use does. By locking up 1.6 million acres from mineral production in Colorado, the Biden administration will reduce the supply of energy, which will increase prices for people across the country. We have seen this happen under the Biden administration for the last three years, and the time has come to re-implement realistic and responsible policies.
Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican, represents Colorado’s 5th Congressional District.
“It’s absolutely not the norm,” he said.
