In August 2023, US Senator Josh Hawley grilled an executive with the electric company Invenergy about the Grain Belt Express. The Grain Belt Express is a power transmission line requiring massive towers to be built across Missouri from the eastern border to the western border. That includes approximately 200 miles of land and eight counties from north-central to northwest Iowa. The transmission line intends to carry power from Western Kansas to Indiana, and the company uses Eminent Domain to take over the land of hundreds of farmers.
In the US Senate, no one is talking about the attempt to use Eminent Domain to take away private property and hundreds of additional farms in Iowa and four other states to build a CO2 pipeline. CO2 pipelines are the latest "it" thing to build on the fears some have of Climate Change. The CO2 pipeline idea seems to be heading down the same path as windmills and solar panels. Private companies and states were too happy to start building windmills and solar panel farms across America without considering the ramifications.
Windmills don't generate enough power to counteract the carbon footprint of their manufacturing, maintenance, and installation over their 20-year lifespan. At the end of their lifespan, the windmill blades can't be recycled and are being buried in landfills; nearly a thousand arms are in the ground in Wyoming right now, and as windmills expire, more arms will be buried in landfills. Solar panels are all the rage currently. They contain lead and Cadmium, both toxic to humans. When these panels wind up in a landfill, they put these chemicals into the ground. Panels have a 30-year lifespan, although the trend of upgrading panels for newer models is overwhelming the anticipated amount of waste generated.
Even when the US Department of Energy tried to eliminate incandescent light bulbs and replace them with fluorescent bulbs, we soon discovered that the replacement lights emitted an odd yellow-tinted light and were made with mercury. The ability to just throw those in the trash was a problem. Many tossed them into their trash cans anyway, and they most likely ended up in landfills.
All these ideas, which were supposed to counteract Climate Change, have generally poisoned the land under our feet. That is not very nature-friendly.
Private companies are using Eminent Domain to acquire land for electric transmission lines. Over the last five years, there has been a battle to take farmland in Iowa, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Minnesota to build CO2 Pipelines. So, what are CO2 pipelines? The Carbon Capture and Storage plan is to take CO2 from ethanol plants in the Midwest, pressurize it, and transport it potentially over 2000 miles to underground storage.
CO2 pipelines are not new; they have existed since the first pipeline was developed in Texas in the mid-1970s. It is becoming clear, though, that pipelines, which are supposed to ultimately sequester CO2 up to 2 miles below the surface, aren't working. CO2 pipelines aren't as efficient or helpful as they thought. CO2 continues to escape the pipelines and filter back into the air. These pipelines can also be dangerous.
In Mississippi, in 2020, a significant rupture of a CO2 pipeline occurred, and the results were life-threatening. In the Mississippi case, since CO2 is heavier than the air, it replaces the oxygen, and the CO2 is an asphyxiant. In that case, people from up to a mile away from the rupture were injured, 200 people had to be evacuated, and 45 had to go to the hospital. There weren't any fatalities, but the danger is pretty straightforward. Also, imagine when there is no oxygen, cars aren't going to run, ambulances, police cars, and firetrucks - all of them need oxygen to function. The bigger question might be, how do you get a gas heavier than oxygen to disperse and allow oxygen back into the area?
Summit Carbon Solutions, LLC, one of the companies aiming to take farms away to build these pipelines, claims that concentrated CO2 can't hurt you. Federal Government guidelines don't allow employees to be exposed to more than 30,000 ppm (parts per million) for more than 10 minutes. Summit's ultimate goal was to connect up to 50 ethanol plants to transport CO2 to North Dakota for storage underground. However, executives haven't denied the potential to sell and ship the CO2 for use in oil extraction domestically or internationally. Summit specifically requested the ability to use Eminent Domain as part of their permit in Iowa.
The three-member Iowa Utilities Board held an evidentiary hearing in August 2024. Testimony continued for eight weeks. Only the actual landowners involved in the route were allowed to testify; those with neighboring properties were declined. The board canceled the public comment period.
In 2020, the University of California, Berkeley, issued a warning through a study on the water usage required for CO2 pipelines. The study shows that the water requirements could be so extreme that they could stress the available water resources worldwide, especially in areas that don't have a plentiful water supply. Water resources are necessary for farming in the states involved in this pipeline, and the capture and storage of carbon could threaten those resources.
You might ask, how did we get here? It all started in August 2022 when then-President Biden signed legislation called the Build Back Better Bill or the Inflation Reduction Act. During the recent campaign for a second term, President Biden even admitted that the Inflation Reduction Act should have been named after what it was: a major climate change bill. The administration signed into law allowing for 7.3 billion dollars in grants for projects like the CO2 pipeline.
Summit CEO Bruce Rastetter, assisted by popular names such as former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad and Jess Vilsak, the son of USDA Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsak, who is an attorney for Summit, all continue to work toward using Eminent Domain to develop the pipelines using federal grants.
The federal and state governments have used Eminent Domain to acquire property for public use. The idea is that the need for the property is vital for supplying water, building transportation, building public buildings and prisons, and even establishing National Parks like Gettysburg. The example of allowing private companies to use Eminent Domain to take land from farmers is not unheard of.
The first case in 1954, Berman v. Parker, allowed private property to be taken for public purposes, expanding the definition of property seizure for public use. The 1981 case of Poletown Neighborhood City Council v. Detroit allowed property seizure for public purposes no matter what the private gain might be, calling it "incidental." Poletown was overturned in 2004 in Michigan in County of Wayne v. Hathcock. This case stipulated that eminent Domain should only be allowed if the property seized is a public necessity, the property remains under public oversight, and a public need.
A year later, in Kelo v. City of London, the US Supreme Court determined taking private land to give to private developers constituted a legal use of Eminent Domain if the development was expected to spawn economic improvements for the area, like creating jobs or increased tax revenue.
Since Kelo, 31 states have enacted laws to protect private property owners. Iowa, currently involved in the Eminent Domain battle, saw the legislature end its last two legislative sessions without a law protecting property owners. Missouri also failed to protect property owners in the recent legislative sessions. Thus, the battle wages on.
CO2 Pipelines: Promises of Clean Energy or Landowner Nightmare?
- by: Traci Ciepiela
- 01/14/2025
- Source:
UncoverDC
- 01/14/2025
