Presidential politics step into pipeline debate

Presidential politics step into pipeline debate

DES MOINES, Iowa — Vivek Ramaswamy is running for the Republican presidential nomination. On Friday he took a detour to wade into an issue that a number of farmers and land owners are dealing with across the state — a proposed Summit Carbon Pipeline.

A group called the Iowa Soil Coalition held the meeting with Ramaswamy and former Iowa congressman Steve King.

“Thanks so much Vivek again for your team for pulling this together here today,” said King. “I want to thank the Free Soil Coalition, we formed that organization on 8 July at Fort Dodge, Iowa. We called some people together and said let’s stand up for our property rights, they poured into that place about 400 of them altogether.”

“On every level from local to the presidential, we need leaders who are able to cut through to the bottom of what’s actually happening,” said Ramaswamy. “This is not about protecting the ethanol industry, in fact, this is one of the most long-term harmful deals to the ethanol industry. It’s bending the knee to markets that eventually will cause it to cease to exist.”

The group also heard from a landowner that would be affected by the pipeline since Summit wants to utilize eminent domain.

“We have six parcels affected by Summit Carbon Solutions so we are on their exhibit list, which means that they want to use the domain on us,” said Cathy Stockdale, a Hardin County Farmer. “If there is a leak on our farm, we will be dead. We are in the kill zone.”

Ramaswamy has expressed his opposition to the Summit Carbon Solutions carbon pipeline and the use of eminent domain. In a press

“What really stood out to me, was the use of eminent domain, the idea that, they were going to use our money to advance some other agenda that didn’t advance American interest to what end? Capture carbon dioxide and burying it in the ground? Come on this is one of many jokes that we’ve adopted in this country,” said Ramaswamy. “The GOP establishment does NOT approve of this message, and it’s pathetic I’m the only candidate to say it.”

N.D. will hold hearing on pipeline ordinances this month

N.D. will hold hearing on pipeline ordinances this month

Commission will decide whether county ordinances restricting placement of CO2 pipelines should stand

A sign reading
A sign reading “No CO2, no eminent domain” stands along a rural road east of Bismarck, N.D., in August. The sign is in opposition to Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed $5.5 billion, 2,000-mile pipeline network to carry carbon dioxide emissions from dozens of ethanol plants in five states to central North Dakota for permanent storage deep underground. (AP Photo/Jack Dura)

A hearing to discuss whether utility regulators in North Dakota should overrule county ordinances that limit the placement of a carbon dioxide pipeline is set for Dec. 21.

The North Dakota Public Service Commission is in the process of reconsidering an application by Summit Carbon Solutions, which seeks to build a five-state pipeline system to transport the captured greenhouse gas from ethanol plants to North Dakota for underground storage.

The newly scheduled hearing concerns ordinances in Burleigh and Emmons counties that restrict how close the pipelines can be located to cities, houses, livestock facilities and other sites. Summit has argued they are so restrictive that they might prevent the project.

Commissioners have indicated they are divided on the issue, and Summit seeks a ruling early in the reconsideration process because of the effects it will have on its proposed route.

In August, the commission unanimously denied Summit a permit for the project because the company had failed to show it minimized its impact on residents. At the time, the commission did not make a decision about the county ordinances because it was denying the permit for other reasons.

Summit convinced the commission to reconsider its permit application with a revised route that avoids a handful of landowners who oppose the project and that is farther away from Bismarck, the capital city.

The commission’s decision to deny the company’s initial request — along with a similar decision by utility regulators in South Dakota — preceded Summit’s announcement that the completion of its pipeline system would be delayed to 2026. It had initially said the system would be operational next year.

It’s unclear how long the reconsideration process in North Dakota will take. State law does not dictate a timeline.

The commission has not yet received all of the information it has requested from Summit about its revisions to the project, said Victor Schock, the commission’s director of public utilities. After it does, the commission is likely to hold at least two further hearings to solicit feedback about the proposal.

A company spokesperson was unsure when the rest of the information will be submitted.

Summit recently paid $150,000 to the commission to cover the expenses associated with those yet-to-be-scheduled hearings, and Schock said the company will be reimbursed for whatever money goes unused.

The company’s permit process in Iowa is drawing to a conclusion. A weekslong evidentiary hearing for the project — more than 680 miles of which would be located in Iowa — concluded last month. Written arguments are due to the Iowa Utilities Board late this month, and rebuttals are due mid January. It’s unclear when the board will issue its decision.

In South Dakota, the company plans to file a new permit application. Company spokesperson Sabrina Zenor said an altered route for that state has not yet been finalized.

This article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.

Protecting Property Rights Takes Courage & Advocacy

Protecting Property Rights Takes Courage & Advocacy

FARMERS UNION …

A Landowner Rights panel discussion was held during the South Dakota Farmers Union State Convention

Spink County Commissioner Suzanne Smith encourages other county governments to establish ordinances to protect property rights and citizens. She was among a group of panelists to speak on a Taking Back Landowner’s Rights during the South Dakota Farmers Union State Convention. Other panelists include (left to right) Drew Dennert, Brown County Commissioner; Curt Soehl, Sioux Falls City Councilor; Mitch Richter, moderator and Brian Jorde, attorney Domina Law Group (participated remotely.) (Courtesy Photo)

HURON, S.D. — County Commissioners have the power to protect landowner rights. It requires bravery. And if you think your land is not in danger of private interests using eminent domain to lay claim to it – just wait.

These were the messages shared by panelists to a packed convention hall during the Landowner Rights panel discussion held in Huron during the South Dakota Farmers Union State Convention November 30.

“Ultimately, this all comes down to you on the ground. And it comes down to courage,” said Brian Jorde, Managing Lawyer, Domina Law Group. “Last session legislators did not have courage. For those of you who have not been active on this. We need you because you are next. If slow but steady erosion of property rights is not confronted, you will be next.”

Jorde was joined by Suzanne Smith, Spink County Commissioner; Drew Dennert, Brown County Commissioner and Curt Soehl, Sioux Falls City Councilor.

“The panelists did an outstanding job expressing the intimidation these County Commissions had to go through to protect their landowners – but the ordinances worked. They were upheld by the Public Utilities Commission,” said Ed Fischbach, a fourth-generation Mellette crop and cattle farmer who has been advocating for property rights since receiving a survey notice letter from Summit Carbon Solutions July 2021.

The ordinances Fischbach references were established by County Commissions and put setbacks in place that restrict how close a CO2 pipeline can be to residences and high concentration areas such as schools and roadways.

Today, only five South Dakota counties have ordinances in place. More need to follow suite said Smith who has served as a Spink County Commissioner since 2017.

She urges other counties to pass ordinances because they protect property owners and citizens of the county.

“We were harassed from very beginning on this from Summit, “we are going to sue you, we will sue you.” “That’s fine, go ahead and sue us.” And they did,’” Smith said.

Smith shared that when a chair of another county commission told her she was brave for writing the ordinance, she said, “There’s nothing brave about doing the right thing.”

The other counties that have similar ordinances are: Brown, McPherson, Moody and Minnehaha. To view Spink County Hazardous Liquid Pipelines ordinance, it is on the homepage of the county website www.spinkcounty-sd.org.

Safety of rural citizens is a concern

Using eminent domain for private gain goes against landowner rights policy established by South Dakota Farmers Union members decades ago, said Doug Sombke, President of the organization. And because current state laws do not fully protect private property rights, Sombke encourages county governments to step up to protect landowners’ rights.

“Every problem that we face is local. The one way to stop this and keep our families safe is if County Commissions across South Dakota pass ordinances to make it safe for their citizens,” Sombke said.

In addition to violating property rights, safety of a CO2 pipeline was another concern discussed.

“My concern would not be for the City of Sioux Falls, who has one of the top 37 fire departments in the country. I don’t know what a rural volunteer fire department would do …We all know they (CO2 pipelines) are very dangerous if they were to erupt. If you have a rural fire department that is taking care of these pipelines I would every concerned for safety of the crews or the residents,” said Soehl, who served 20 years on Sioux Falls Fire Department and was captain in the Hazardous Materials Unit.

Safety is also a concern expressed by Fischbach. “This pipeline is only buried four-feet in the ground. How many of us have buried our combines more than four-feet in a wet year? And if you hit it, you are done,” said Fischbach referencing the fact that if a CO2 pipeline springs a leak, the result is much different than a natural gas or fuel pipeline. “The gas will asphyxiant you – you will not be able to breath. This is the testimony I heard from first responders to a CO2 leak in Mississippi.”

Safety concerns are among the reasons Ipswich farmers, Lance and Sarah Perrion called on their County Commissioners to establish an ordinance a while back.

“When we asked what the county would do to protect us from a leak, they said it would be our responsibility,” explained Sarah Perrion. “So, they expect my kindergartener to carry a gas mask to school?”

While the Perrions wait for Edmunds County to implement an ordinance, they join a growing number of rural citizens willing to show up to support South Dakotans First Coalition. It’s the nonpartisan coalition South Dakota Farmers Union helped launch in October of 2023.

South Dakotans First Coalition is dedicated to safeguarding and upholding the property rights of individuals against the encroachment and profit-seeking actions of corporations. The bottom line is no eminent domain for private gain.

Yankton farmers, David and Ione Cap are grateful that something is being done to help protect the land that has been in David’s family for more than a century.

“The ground that our cattle graze today was cared for by my forefathers who had it before me. They took good care of it,” said Cap, 82. “I have taken good care of it and I hope that when I pass it on to our grandchildren it is in even better shape than when it was passed to me.”

To learn more about South Dakotans First Coalition, visit www.southdakotansfirst.com. And to learn more about how South Dakota Farmers Union supports family farmers, ranchers and rural communities, visit www.sdfu.org.

— SDFU

Schneidermann: Expect resistance to renewable energy projects

Schneidermann: Expect resistance to renewable energy projects

Back in October, when Navigator CO2 Ventures announced that it had killed its proposed $3.5 billion, 1,300-mile Heartland Greenway carbon-capture pipeline across Iowa and several other states, news organizations carried the story on their front pages and at the top of their news programs.

Opponents — including some environmentalists such as the Sierra Club — cheered! They claimed victory in a long battle against the pipeline company that had sought to use provisions of Iowa’s eminent domain law to obtain easements for their pipelines.

Two other carbon pipeline companies, Summit Carbon Solutions and Wolf Carbon Solutions are pressing on with their own plans for cross-state carbon pipelines. Both are facing stiff resistance.

A story not as well covered by the news media is that of a growing accumulation of resistance to green energy projects in rural areas.

Robert Bryce, an independent author and journalist, has developed a database of projects rejected or banned by rural communities. Last month, his count moved up to 601 denials since starting his database in 2015 when the commissioners of Harvey County, Kansas, voted unanimously to ban commercial wind and utility-scale solar projects in their county. Harvey County is in south-central Kansas. It reports a population of 34,000.

You will likely hear more of this story in the future.

Roughly 80 percent of our population lives in urban areas. The rest of us are scattered rather thinly across most of the country.

City dwellers use lots of energy and densely populated areas tend to align with politicians concerned about climate change and so-called clean energy. But where are the power plants, windmills, solar farms and carbon pipelines located? Yes, of course, in rural areas.

For the amount of energy generated, the windmills and solar farms require a considerable amount of land and additional land for the power grids that connect them. Generators, in particular, spoil landscapes and pose hazards to anything that flies on a wing. And no one knows what happens when the useful life of a windmill is over. Will it simply be abandoned?

Rural residents may not carefully analyze all the factors of renewable energy, but they are intuitively and correctly concerned.

Another controversy is the motive force that connects renewable energy installations: Big government, big oil, big business and big banks. Why? Because most of these projects are financed, in part, by federal tax credits.

Big companies love tax credits — it is pure free money — and they can be sold to other taxpayers. A tax credit for an individual or corporation is better than a tax deduction. A deduction reduces the amount of income taxed. But tax credit reduces the amount of a taxpayer’s federal tax liability. It is having someone else — the government in this case — pay your taxes while you keep all the income. Tax credits were increased in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act of 2021 and increased again in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

Back to those carbon pipelines. When the tax credit was raised to $85 per ton of carbon dioxide in the Inflation Reduction Act, capturing and transporting carbon from concentrated sources like ethanol plants became economically feasible. Proposals for pipelines across Iowa appeared almost overnight. We shouldn’t have been surprised.

Expect more resistance to renewable energy projects in the future. This issue pits two classic constituencies — rural and urban — against each other.

Add in massive deficit spending augmented by generous tax credits and insincere political rhetoric of taxing big corporations, and you might have a politically explosive mix on your hands.


George Schneidermann lives in Rock Rapids. He may be reached at gschneidermann@iowainformation.com.

Unified Carbon Standard Coalition Announced At COP28

Unified Carbon Standard Coalition Announced At COP28

At COP28 in Dubai, the announcement of a powerful carbon standard coalition marked a significant step forward in global efforts to address climate change. The coalition brings together the leading independent carbon crediting standards, including ACR, ART, Climate Action Reserve, Global Carbon Council, Gold Standard, and Verra.

The standards plan to establish a structure to continue exchanging knowledge to improve their crediting programs, better assist activities that bring about mitigation and real community benefits, and offer strong mechanisms for countries to implement their Article 6 strategies.

The organizations will establish a structure to maintain ongoing support for unbiased and strong evaluation of crediting programs to guarantee they adhere to the most rigorous credit standards.

They endorse the efforts of the ICVCM in setting minimum benchmarks for credit quality throughout the market and aspire to see these benchmarks increase in the future.

Their efforts will focus on harmonizing criteria based on universal principles for the measurement and recording of removals and reductions. They will also strive to prolong the effectiveness of CO2 sinks and provide insurance against reversals.

Relevant: ICVCM Publishes Criteria For Core Carbon Principle Standards

Another aspect of their shared effort will focus on developing measures to emphasize the positive impact of projects on communities, highlight advancements in sustainable development, and prevent negative consequences. Additionally, they will aim to enhance the transparency surrounding CO2 credits and facilitate the transfer of financial resources to developing nations.

All six participants in the carbon standard coalition have been accredited within the International Civil Aviation Organization’s CORSIA market, the first worldwide compliance regime, and are currently pursuing evaluation under the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market’s Core Carbon Principles (CCPs).

The organizations have expressed their openness to receiving contributions from other autonomous accreditation programs for the collaboration.

Read more: Independent Report Finds Gold Standard Carbon Credits To Be Reliable