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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 DODGE—Anti-pipeliners have taken issue with nearly every point of the hearing process as the Iowa Utilities Board continues to deliberate the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline.
A litany of specific complaints fit into a distrustful state of mind for opponents of the proposed carbon dioxide pipeline.
“There are a lot of people who are angry about this process and in disbelief that our government could be run this way. It’s eye-opening,” Jess Mazour said. “But it’s not turning into hopelessness. It’s turning into anger.”
Mazour is with the Sierra Club and has been a leading voice against Summit and similar projects for two years.
Since Aug. 22, the IUB has been meeting Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at the Cardiff Event Center in Fort Dodge.
According to experts familiar with proceedings like Summit’s, the process has been unusual in format and regulations, leading critics to call the hearing biased in favor of the Ames-based company.
Petition
Some of the issues involve decorum in the hearing itself.
One example was Mazour being told Thursday, Aug. 24, that she could not bring her electronic devices into the room to take notes. Another was outside food or drink were barred from the hearing, although the IUB was selling bottled water for $1.
Anti-pipeline landowners and allies rally Tuesday, Aug. 22, ahead of the Iowa Utilities Board hearing in Fort Dodge on the proposed Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline. Elijah Helton ehelton@iowainformation.com
The rules were clearly posted from the first day of the hearing, which IUB spokesperson Melissa Myers pointed out.
“The rules of conduct posted in multiple locations at the entrance and in the room have not changed,” Myers said.
Those two rules were rolled back somewhat on Tuesday, Aug. 29. The water is now free and Mazour is allowed to use her laptop without stepping outside.
“They definitely have made some concessions based on our complaints from the first week,” Mazour said.
Those concessions have not been enough, Mazour said, and the most substantial issues still stand. That is why more than 1,000 people signed onto a petition delivered to the IUB Wednesday, Aug. 30.
Several criticisms of the IUB hearing are in the petition. It concludes the board should turn it over to an administrative judge in an effort to promote a more open atmosphere.
Anna Ryon
A lawyer on the anti-pipeline side, Anna Ryon is one of the experts in utilities litigation who said the proceedings are unorthodox.
She used to be an attorney for the Iowa Office of Consumer Advocate but left in May because she felt the government agency was not doing enough to protect the public’s interests, especially on CO2 pipelines.
“I feel like the Office of Consumer Advocate is becoming more of an observer and less of an advocate. You can tell just by the way the filings have changed,” Ryon said.
The OCA has a representative at the meeting and moved to have Ryon blocked from the hearing. The argument was someone in her situation usually must wait two years before engaging in private practice on issues she covered in the public sector.
Attorney Anna Ryon (right) speaks with an anti-pipeline landowner during a break in the Iowa Utilities Board hearing on the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline Tuesday, Aug. 22, in Fort Dodge. Ryon is one of several lawyers working against the CO2 project. Elijah Helton ehelton@iowainformation.com
Ryon is working pro bono, and the IUB decided to let her stay in the room.
But outside the Cardiff Event Center, her van got towed. It happened Wednesday, Aug. 23, when she and others still were in the hearing.
“I’m still trying to find out exactly who did what,” Ryon said. “What I can say is that I’m disappointed that it was towed and nobody bothered to check in the hearing room.”
The 2019 Ram ProMaster has served as her mobile office during the hearing. Her documents for anti-pipeline landowners and everything else she needs are in it.
She also has been living out of the van during the hearing. A Des Moines resident, she can’t afford a hotel room in Fort Dodge, so she’s been sleeping at a nearby campsite.
Ryon and her friends were able to call in favors to recover the van from the impound lot after hours, but it still rattled her and Mazour.
Myers acknowledged the tow happened but said it was at the request of the event center.
Timeline
More than her personal issues, Ryon said the hearing’s format has been vague, confusing and unhelpful for landowners fighting the pipeline.
While an exact hearing schedule isn’t set, there is a general order of testimony:
Landowners on the pipeline route, also known as Exhibit H.
Formal argument from Summit Carbon Solutions.
Intervening landowners and other interest groups.
Summit’s closing rebuttal.
Exhibit H’s wrapped Thursday, Aug. 31, although Ryon and other lawyers only found out when it was announced at the end of that day’s proceedings. Summit starts testifying Tuesday, Sept. 5.
“I guess I am now going to have a very busy weekend. I did not know that before. There was no advance warning whatsoever,” Ryon said.
The unknown and seemingly volatile timeline is one of the other complaints cited in the petition Mazour championed.
Brian Jorde — an attorney representing many Exhibit H landowners who fear eminent domain will force the pipeline on their property — concurred with Ryon and Mazour that the hearing’s structure has been haphazard.
“How am I supposed to prepare? We’re just supposed to sit here for weeks on end waiting? It’s crazy. That would never happen in a courthouse. Total nonsense,” Jorde said. “They’re just kind of making it up as they go.”
Forward
Anti-pipeliners have other avenues to scuttle Summit’s plans.
Even if the IUB signs off the project, Mazour said the movement is prepared to go to court.
“Everything leading up to this hearing, how it’s been run, is setting us up for some pretty serious due-process violations. I think this is going to be appealed no matter what happens,” she said.
There also will be pressure on the Iowa Legislature to take action once it’s back in session in January, although Republican leadership there has killed any efforts to mitigate CO2 pipelines.
If nothing else, anti-pipeliners aren’t going down without a fight in Fort Dodge.
“At the end of this, we will have made it very easy for the IUB to do the right thing and vote ‘No,’” Mazour said. “There’s still a lot of hope that we can stop these pipelines.”
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesota regulators voted this week to proceed with an environmental review for part of a proposed but disputed pipeline network that would carry planet-warming carbon dioxide from Midwest ethanol plants to a permanent underground storage site.
Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions wants to build a $5.5 billion, 2,000-mile (3,200 kilometer) pipeline network across five states so that carbon dioxide from more than 30 ethanol plants could be permanently locked underground in central North Dakota instead of being released into the atmosphere as it is now.
But the project has run into resistance.
North Dakota regulators on Aug. 5 denied Summit’s application for key permits. Landowners in South Dakota concerned about the risks of a pipeline rupture and property rights have objected to the company’s use of eminent domain along the route. Iowa regulators recently opened a several-week hearing, while South Dakota regulators will open a hearing next month. The network would also cross parts of Nebraska, where counties will be the regulators.
Other similar projects are proposed around the country as industries try to reduce their carbon footprints. Supporters say carbon capture will combat climate change. Governments and companies are making big investments in it. But opponents say the technology isn’t proven at scale and could require huge investments at the expense of alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power.
The question before the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission on Thursday was narrow: whether to approve a draft plan laying out the scope of a formal environmental review for one small part of the proposed project, a 28-mile segment in Minnesota that would connect an ethanol plant in Fergus Falls to the North Dakota border, where it would connect with Summit’s network. Commissioners approved it unanimously.
The Minnesota-based rural environmental advocacy group CURE had asked the PUC to defer any decision indefinitely because of the decision by the North Dakota Public Service Commission to reject a certificate of need and route permit for the project. North Dakota regulators cited several issues that they said Summit didn’t appropriately address, such as cultural resource impacts, geologic instability and landowner concerns.
CURE said proceeding with the environmental review in Minnesota would be a waste of state resources – that the project would be a “pipeline to nowhere” without the crucial North Dakota approvals.
But Summit recently petitioned North Dakota regulators to reconsider. Company attorney Christina Brusven told the Minnesota regulators that Summit expects it will be able to address North Dakota’s concerns in the coming months, so Minnesota should not wait to start its review process.
PUC staff told commissioners ahead of Thursday’s hearing that they expected the review would lead to completion of a draft environmental impact this winter, followed by a public comment process. If the commission determines that the final review meets the legal requirements, the PUC could decide whether to issue a route permit for the project as early as next summer.
Summit is planning to file additional permit applications in the coming months for a longer and physically separate part of its proposed network that would connect several ethanol plants in southern Minnesota with its proposed main line in Iowa.
Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years.
When examining the intricate web of businesses that have sprung up around Summit Carbon Solutions, one cannot help but wonder how many private, largely unregulated LLCs are associated with the proposed CO2 pipeline.
Lawler SCS Capture, LLC is among the more recently unearthed businesses formed by Summit. On May 29, 2023, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources issued a water use permit to Lawler SCS, which shares an address with Summit Carbon Solutions in Ames. The permit expires on May 28, 2033. Lawler SCS submitted its application to the department on April 17.
The permit authorizes Lawler SCS to:
Withdraw water from one new Devonian Limestone well, about 380 feet deep, located on land generally described as the NW ¼ of the SE ¼ of Section 01, T95N, R12W, Chickasaw County, Iowa, in the maximum quantity of 55.9 million gallons per year at a maximum rate of 100 gallons per minute throughout each year for carbon capture-related purposes on said land.
According to Michael K. Anderson, a senior environmental engineer with the Iowa DNR’s Water Quality Bureau, the New Hampton Tribune published a public notice of recommendation to issue a permit to Lawler SCS in early May. Iowa Administrative Code 567—50.7(3) requires such public notices. Anderson indicated to Bleeding Heartland that public comments were due by May 24, and the DNR received none.
The well is to be located on land owned by Homeland Energy Services in Lawler, Iowa. Homeland is an ethanol plant and a Summit Carbon partner, having signed on to the proposed pipeline. It is not known how the well will be used, other than for “carbon capture-related purposes” identified in the permit the DNR issued.
South Dakota’s Redfield SCS well
Joshua Haiar reported for the South Dakota Searchlight on August 20 on the efforts of another Summit Carbon business, Redfield SCS Capture, LLC, to secure a water-rights permit from the South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources. The proposed well “could take up to 21 million gallons of water per year from the Dakota Aquifer, which is an amount equivalent to about 32 Olympic-sized pools.” The land on which this well will sit is either adjacent to or on property owned by Redfield Energy, LLC, an ethanol plant in Redfield, South Dakota that is also a Summit Carbon pipeline partner.
The Searchlight article explained, “Because some nearby residents sent opposition comments to the state during a public comment period, the proposed permit will be the subject of a contested case hearing this fall.” Residents who spoke with Searchlight expressed concerns about reductions in water pressure stemming from the proposed Redfield well.
Two residents said state employees they spoke with (but declined to identify) indicated the well would likely result in “a drastic decline in pressure,” but that bureaucracy would prevent them from stopping Summit. One resident, Debra Curtis, received a call from Governor Krisi Noem’s communications director Ian Fury, assuring her that her rights would take priority over Summit. Fury called after Curtis tried without success to reach her previous contact with the state.
Goldfield SCS Capture, LLC
Another Summit Carbon business, Goldfield SCS Capture, LLC, recently submitted a water use permit application for a well to be located on or near land owned by Corn, LP in Goldfield, Iowa (Wright County). This application seeks to withdraw water from the proposed Goldfield well at an annual rate of 27.60 million gallons per year, with a maximum requested pumping rate of 55 gallons per minute. The aquifer type is identified in the permit application as “Mississippian.” The Goldfield application to the Iowa DNR also provided a map and additional documentation.
To date, Lawler SCS and Goldfield SCS do not appear to be registered with the Iowa Secretary of State. Similarly, Redfield SCS does not appear to be registered with the South Dakota Secretary of State. However, three LLCs with identical names were registered with the Delaware Department of State on February 4, 2022. Another Summit business, Saint Ansgar SCS Capture, LLC, was registered with the Delaware Department of State on June 12, 2023, and also submitted an application for certificate of authority with the Iowa Secretary of State on July 3, 2023.
The Iowa application identified SCS Carbon Removal, LLC as one of the member managers of Saint Ansgar SCS. Asked whether Summit Carbon Solutions or any of its affiliates or subsidiaries have sought a well permit from Mitchell County, where Saint Ansgar is located, Mitchell County Environmental Health Specialist and Zoning Administrator Macie Adams told Bleeding Heartland, “Summit Carbon Solutions has not submitted any well permit applications to Mitchell County, and neither has any affiliated LLCs, subsidiaries, or companies that I am aware of.”
According to Anderson, Goldfield submitted an application to the Iowa DNR on August 26. The department tentatively plans to publish a public notice in the Eagle Grove Eagle on September 13, after which the public will have 20 days to respond.
It’s not clear whether Summit Carbon Solutions has entered into an agreement with Homeland Energy Solutions or Corn, LP related to the wells, potentially addressing ownership and operational issues.
When asked if he knew whether Summit Carbon Solutions plans to submit applications for wells on or near each of the ethanol plants that have signed on to the proposed Summit Carbon pipeline in Iowa, Anderson responded, “I do not know what Summit’s plans are.”
Top image of water flushing out of an agriculture industrial tube well is by Magsi and available via Shutterstock.
Gov. Kim Reynolds “has not influenced” the state permit process for a proposed carbon dioxide pipeline that is nearing its conclusion, a spokesperson said this week.
The comment was in response to a landowner’s recent assertion that Reynolds and other elected leaders have favored Summit Carbon Solutions’ pipeline project over their constituents’ concerns because of the company co-founder’s wealth and influence.
“Follow the money,” said Richard Davis, a Cherokee County landowner who testified in a permit hearing on Tuesday.
Davis opposes the project and has four parcels of land that are subject to the company’s eminent domain requests. He testified that he sought help from state legislators to protect his land but that they said Bruce Rastetter, the co-founder, has donated a lot of money to Reynolds’ campaigns and that “she will not act on this until the pipeline is through.”
Summit Carbon Solutions wants to transport captured carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to North Dakota for underground sequestration. (Image courtesy of Summit Carbon Solutions)
Summit’s $5.5 billion pipeline would transport captured carbon dioxide from ethanol plants in five states to North Dakota for underground sequestration. More than 680 miles of that pipeline system is planned for Iowa.
Rastetter is an agriculture mogul and a major political donor. From 2015 to 2022, he donated more than $160,000 to the Kim Reynolds for Iowa campaign committee, according to state campaign disclosure reports. Those donations preceded her ascent to governor in 2017, when former Gov. Terry Branstad resigned to be the U.S. ambassador to China.
The allegation of Rastetter’s influence over elected officials is not new. In the past two years as legislators struggled — and ultimately failed — to pass new legislation to restrict eminent domain for carbon dioxide pipelines, some of the legislators publicly said the same.
“How much money did Bruce Rastetter give you?” Rep. Jeff Shipley, R-Birmingham, told people to ask their legislators in March 2022. “There are a lot of people that bend over for money. They bend over so much sometimes I’m surprised they can still walk.”
IUB shakeup
But the allegation gained more traction this summer when the Iowa Utilities Board decided to start Summit’s evidentiary hearing two months earlier than it had previously considered. The move prompted complaints from pipeline opponents and state lawmakers that the permit process was being accelerated toward approval.
Summit has sought a decision on its permit in Iowa by the end of the year, and the company intends to start construction in 2024.
That IUB decision followed Reynolds’ appointment of a new member to the board, Erik Helland, who was a replacement for a member whose term was expiring. Reynolds further named him chairperson.
Geri Huser resigned from the Iowa Utilities Board after the appointment of a new chairperson. (Photo by Jared Strong/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
Former chairperson Geri Huser submitted her letter of resignation from the board less than a week later.
Huser’s term as chairperson was set to expire, but it could have been renewed. And she could have remained as a board member until at least 2027.
“Geri Huser announced her resignation at the expiration of her term as chair of IUB after 8 years of service, and Governor Reynolds greatly appreciated her leadership,” said Kollin Crompton, the deputy communications director for Reynolds. “Across state government, the governor has a longstanding policy of rotating board leadership and refreshing board membership to allow for new voices to be heard.”
However, the decision resulted in two new members on the three-person board, and that happened toward the end of Summit’s permit process, which began in August 2021.
The remaining incumbent board member, Josh Byrnes, had initially resisted a Summit hearing start date in October, primarily because it would conflict with harvest season and might prevent farmers affected by the project from participating.
But Byrnes also questioned whether it was possible to effectively evaluate Summit’s proposal in a shortened timeframe because it is “the most resource-intensive project that has come before the board in 50 years, possibly since the board’s inception,” he wrote in February.
He noted that board staff had initially proposed a hearing start date in May 2024.
Brynes reversed course after the appointment of the two new board members and supported the Aug. 22 start date. In July, he wrote that the board’s decision to have some of the landowners who are subject to eminent domain requests testify at the start of the hearing — rather than at the end — alleviated his worries about harvest. He did not address his previous concerns about ensuring that the project is fully vetted.
Other donations
Rastetter also donated to lawmakers in the Iowa Senate who might have been key to blocking legislation this year that was overwhelmingly approved by the Iowa House and would have limited eminent domain for carbon dioxide pipelines.
In 2019, 2020 and 2021, Rastetter gave a total of $37,500 to a campaign committee that supports Sen. Jack Whitver, R-Grimes, the majority leader who decides what bills get a vote by the entire chamber.
And last year, Rastetter gave $5,000 to the campaign of Sen. Mike Bousselot, R-Ankeny. He led a subcommittee to which the House bill was assigned, but the bill was never considered for recommendation.
Bousselot was the subject of an ethics complaint over his handling of that bill, in part, because he formerly worked for Summit Agriculture Group, which owns Summit Carbon Solutions.
Bousselot and Whitver did not immediately respond to requests to comment for this article.
Donations don’t necessarily equate to favorable votes: The Iowa Farm Bureau Federation — which supported the bill — also donated to the senators. The organization’s donations in 2022 to them exceeded Rastetter’s contributions that year. Also, Rastetter has contributed more than $35,000 to a campaign committee that supports Rep. Matt Windschitl, the House majority leader who voted in favor of the bill.
Rastetter also donated $26,000 last year to a campaign committee that supports Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, who won her
Gov. Kim Reynolds speaks at the Iowa Renewable Fuels Summit on Feb. 7, 2023. (Photo by Jared Strong/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
first term in the November election.
Bird’s authority over the Office of Consumer Advocate was strengthened by a governmental reorganization bill that was one of Reynolds’ legislative priorities.
The office is charged with representing the interests of the public in utility proceedings such as Summit’s permit application, and a former attorney for the office said she quit her job there in May because it had become “more of an observer and less of an advocate.”
“The concerns of ‘undue influence’ are completely unfounded and untrue,” Crompton, Reynolds’ spokesman, told Iowa Capital Dispatch. “The governor meets regularly with leaders from a wide variety of industries in Iowa including agriculture, insurance, technology, and health care to help inform policy priorities. Governor Reynolds’ work with the legislature over the last four years to improve Iowa’s economy and business climate has resulted in Iowa being recognized nationally as a top ten state to live in, the number one state to retire in, the number one state for the lowest cost of living, the most fiscally responsible state in the country, the number two state for health care, top three state for opportunity, the number four state for labor participation, and a top five state for first time homebuyers.”
ST. PAUL — An environmental assessment of a carbon capture pipeline in Minnesota will be limited to the two counties where a short segment of the pipeline runs, leaving out the bulk of the proposed project.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission on Thursday, Aug. 31, voted unanimously to limit the assessment to impact on Otter Tail and Wilkin counties.
The company behind the pipeline, Summit Carbon Solutions, has so far only filed for a route permit application for a 20 mile stretch in those two counties, running from the Green Plains ethanol plant at Fergus Falls, Minnesota, to the North Dakota state line.
Summit has plans for about 240 miles of pipeline in Minnesota, part of a 2,000 mile network of pipelines connecting ethanol plants in five states to an underground storage site in North Dakota.
Summit Carbon Solutions
If built, the pipeline will take greenhouse gas emissions from the ethanol plants in what Summit calls the world’s largest carbon capture and sequestration project.
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Some environmental groups had argued that an environmental impact study should encompass all of the planned route through Minnesota.
Commissioner John Tuma asked if North Dakota’s recent decision to deny Summit a route permit would affect the company’s plans to cross into North Dakota. The pipeline route would cross south of Breckenridge, Minnesota, and Wahpeton, North Dakota.
John Satterfield, left, director of regulatory affairs for Summit Carbon Solutions, speaks Tuesday, May 2, at Breckenridge High School during a meeting led by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission on the company’s proposed carbon capture pipeline. With Satterfield are attorney Christina Brusven, center, and Scott O’Konek, senior project manager for Summit. Jeff Beach / Agweek
Summit has requested that the North Dakota Public Service Commission reconsider its decision, but even if it has to start the permit process over in that state, it still could have a North Dakota permit before the Minnesota PUC makes its decision.
Part of that is because of the length of time to complete the environmental impact statement in Minnesota — 280 days. Brusven noted that it has already been 11 months since Summit filled for a route permit in Minnesota.
“Even a brand new application, we feel that we could make in North Dakota, very rapidly, based on the information we’ve already gathered and their process, start to finish, is still likely to be completed before yours is,” Brusven said.
The environmental study also will look at two route alternatives suggested by CURE (Clean Up the River Environment).
North Dakota is the first state to make a ruling on a Summit route application. A decision on Summit’s petition to reconsider should come by Sept. 17, 30 days after the petition was filed.
Across the country, farmers and small communities are desperately rallying to protect their land and families from thousands of miles of new “carbon capture” pipelines being built as a result of Democrats’ misleadingly titled “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA).
In total, the IRA contained some $783 billion in spending related to Democrats’ environmental agenda, much of which came in the form of lucrative subsidies for utility companies to make energy production more “green.” As a result, hundreds of corporations have scrambled to vacuum up a portion of the funding.
Several dozen ventures have sprung up to build a network of carbon capture pipelines which would extend from the Great Lakes down to Texas and across the Midwest to Maine and Florida.
Carbon capture technology is a process designed to mitigate the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. It involves capturing CO2 from industrial processes or power plants, transporting the captured CO2 to a storage site (via a network of pipelines) and storing it deep underground in depleted oil and gas fields or saline aquifers to prevent its release into the atmosphere.
The practice has enjoyed some bipartisan support in Congress in recent years, and several Republican governors have endorsed pipeline proposals. However, for all the hopeful, high-minded talk about carbon capture technology, most of the public has been left in the dark on the effectiveness and environmental impact of this technology.
The carbon capture and transport process carries significant risks, many of which the citizens of Satartia, Mississippi, learned first-hand in February 2020 when an underground carbon capture pipe burst and sent plumes of carbon dioxide rushing through the town. A recent article from The Intercept described the scene: “People were acting like zombies, dazed and walking in circles or gazing back blankly as responders yelled for them to evacuate. Others convulsed, drooling, as panic-stricken family members called 911.”
The pipeline operator waited an hour before informing first responders that the gas was highly compressed carbon dioxide and not natural gas, as was initially believed. Forty-nine citizens were hospitalized, and many sustained traumas that affect them to this day.
This incident highlights serious concerns about the rapid proliferation of carbon capture pipelines. Highly compressed carbon dioxide is is entirely odorless and, when in gas form, is not subject to the same level of regulation as oil and natural gas. Americans are often unaware that a CO2 pipeline is going in near their home until digging begins.
While construction companies that stand to make a killing from building the pipelines and investors that will enjoy the lucrative tax benefits from the projects are all in favor of them, Americans on both sides of the political aisle have formed some unlikely alliances to push back against this component of Democrats’ environmental agenda.
In Iowa, for instance, which is set to become home to hundreds of miles of CO2 pipelines, liberal environmental groups are teaming up with conservatives like ex-GOP Congressman Steve King to oppose $8 billion in proposed carbon capture infrastructure in the Hawkeye State. Eminent domain hearings are currently underway to determine if construction companies for one of those projects, the $4.5 billion Summit pipeline, can begin seizing farmers’ land to run the pipeline through.
The Summit pipeline is set to terminate in North Dakota, where it has forged another improbable alliance between mostly white farmers and Native American tribes. While the farmers are similarly concerned about the pipeline cutting through their land and potentially endangering their crops, Native Americans have said that the project will cut across lands that are sacred to their tribes.
This presents a particularly thorny issue for the White House, as President Joe Biden cited a concern for Native American heritage sites as one reason behind his decision to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline back in 2021. Notably, that project would have only straddled or run alongside Native American lands, while several of the proposed CO2 pipeline projects would run directly through them.
So far, North Dakota regulators have denied a siting permit for the Summit pipeline’s proposed route in the state, but Governor and Republican candidate for president Doug Burgum has been a strong backer of the project.
More public hearings are scheduled for September, where conservative farmers and liberal environmental activists are both expected to voice their frustrations.
The upcoming Iowa caucuses, now just a few months away, could also help make the debate over CO2 pipelines a high-profile national story heading into next year. Multiple Republican candidates have already been asked about it by Iowa voters, a pattern the mainstream media is starting to pick up on.
It will be deeply ironic if, after making opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline a major issue in his 2020 campaign, Biden’s support for a network of CO2 pipelines becomes a major liability for him in 2024.
Andrew Abbott is the pen name of a writer and public affairs consultant with more than a decade of experience in DC at the intersection of politics and culture.
