During debate with S.D. lawmaker, carbon pipeline executive calls eminent domain a ‘last resort’

BROOKINGS, S.D. — An executive for a carbon dioxide pipeline company said during a debate Tuesday evening that eminent domain is “a tool of absolute last resort.”

Elizabeth Burns-Thompson, vice president of government and public affairs for Navigator CO2, debated South Dakota state Rep. Jon Hansen, R-Dell Rapids, at the Dacotah Bank Event Center. Hansen is a critic of Navigator’s proposed pipeline and another pipeline proposed by Summit Carbon Solutions, both of which would capture carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol plants in multiple states and transport the gas in liquid form to be injected underground or sold for industrial use.

Eminent domain is a legal process for gaining access to land when a landowner won’t grant it. Summit is pursuing dozens of eminent domain actions in court for its project, while Navigator has not yet used eminent domain and has said it has voluntary land-access agreements – called “easements” – with about 30% of affected landowners in the state.

When asked if Navigator could guarantee it won’t use eminent domain, Burns-Thompson said that can’t be promised in every circumstance.

Burns-Thompson did not address that allegation during the debate. She told South Dakota Searchlight later that “we are required to explain how eminent domain works in Iowa in those initial notice letters,” and the company decided those letters should be consistent everywhere, “in the name of transparency.”

Hansen said when eminent domain is hanging overhead, “no matter how you slice it, that’s not a voluntary negotiation, that’s coercion.”

The debate drew a crowd of hundreds — mostly landowners opposed to the project who cheered for Hansen. The debate was organized by The Dakota Scout, the South Dakota Federation of Republican Women, and the Sioux River Republican Women.

“I would describe this project as a boondoggle,” he said, adding that the only reason for the project is federal tax credits. The credits incentivize the removal of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, where it contributes to climate change.

Burns-Thompson countered, reminding the audience that the tax credits have been around since 2008 and were expanded under former President Donald Trump. Congress and President Joe Biden upped the credits last year to $85 per metric ton of carbon sequestered annually, making Navigator’s Heartland Greenway pipeline potentially eligible for up to $1.5 billion in annual credits.

Burns-Thompson described ethanol – which is made from corn to be mixed with gasoline – as more than a fuel. She mentioned its byproducts, including distillers grains, which can be used as livestock feed.

Burns-Thompson said by creating a market for ethanol’s carbon byproduct, ethanol will be more successful.

“That’s going to take markets,” she said, referring to states like California, which are demanding cleaner fuels. “That’s going to take infrastructure.”

Hansen, who described himself as a “big fan of ethanol,” said those markets are already shifting to electric vehicles.

“We shouldn’t be appeasing to those people,” Hansen said, criticizing their “leftist climate agenda.”

Burns-Thompson told South Dakota Searchlight that the company accepted the debate invitation because it believes in transparency and open communication.

Navigator has already had a lengthy hearing before the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission and is awaiting a decision on its permit application. The commission will begin a hearing for Summit Carbon Solutions on Sept. 11.

If it can be done cost effectively, carbon capture and carbon sequestration would be a great technology to deploy. Finding an industrial use and thus a legitimate market for captured carbon would be even better. It is a mistake for Republicans to oppose this reflexively. What’s wrong with it?

Pipeline safety? We have pipelines all over the place, carrying all manner of materials. They are a safe way to move stuff. We know how to do this. The occasional spill can be contained and fixed. And in this case, we’re talking about carbon that would otherwise be released as CO2.

The left opposes ethanol for the same reason the left opposes natural gas and coal. The left now wants an all electric future, provided the electricity is generated by wind, solar, unicorn farts and wishful thinking. Why should conservatives help sabotage alternative technologies?

Because this whole thing is spending hundreds of billions or trillions to “solve” a problem that DOES NOT EXIST !

Think again.

The ethanol plants currently exist. They produce ethanol, for which there is a legitimate market, and DDGS, for which there is a legitimate market. They also produce CO2 as a waste product, for which they face endless harassment from the enviros.

If you believe CO2 emissions are a non-issue, then you should have no beef with the ethanol plants just releasing the CO2 into the atmosphere. As do coal fired and natural gas plants.

But for better or worse, that is not the political and regulatory world in which we live. At the rate we're going, it won't be long before the enviros want to regulate each of us by weight, since CO2 is a byproduct of respiration and fat people emit more CO2 than skinny people. The elites will fly endlessly around the world on their private planes to their conferences in posh resorts, from which they will issue doomsday projections and demands that the rest of us adopt tofu and insect diets to combat global climate change. I exaggerate only slightly. When we consider the technology forcing demands the left wants to impose on all carbon-emitting industries, I'm not sure it is an exaggeration at all.

Anyhow, as I understand it, what we have here is a group of people involved in the ethanol industry who think they have figured out how to beat the enviros' harassment games.

The real reasons the left despises ethanol have nothing to do with CO2, and for good reason. A corn plant captures CO2 from the atmosphere as it grows. The corn plant is harvested and turned into food, feed, ethanol and DDGS. The CO2 captured by the corn plant is released in the process. This is not geologically stored carbon, which is the case with coal. With regard to the corn itself, the CO2 impact is a wash: the CO2 released is the same CO2 captured during the growing process. Any additional CO2 release arises from the fuel and fertilizer used in agricultural production, plus the indirect CO2 load associated with the manufacture of farm equipment, the machinery and buildings involved in ethanol production, the transportation of processed products to market, etc. The enviros are relentless in demanding "complete lifecycle analysis" to calculate these CO2 emissions -- but ONLY of technologies that compete with wind and solar and NEVER of their own pet technologies, which get a free ride. I've not seen the numbers, but I suspect that as very low density energy production systems with very high capital costs and technology intensive manufacturing requirements for the systems themselves, wind and solar would get blown out of the water by complete life cycle analysis. But the left will never insist that this be calculated for wind and solar and will actively oppose any effort to do so. The left has settled on its solution and will rig the game to force the desired outcome.

If someone can figure out how to cost effectively capture, recycle, or sequester carbon -- or even better, turn it into an economically valuable raw material for an industrial process that permanently binds the carbon in a manufactured product -- that would be great. The left opposes this because it would solve a problem that the left wants to exploit to control both production agriculture and the nation's transportation fuel future.

The real reason that the enviros despise ethanol is that ethanol (and DDGS) created an enormous new market for corn that led to a dramatic, technology driven expansion of corn production and precision agriculture. The enviros want land taken out of production, not placed into production. The enviros also want a massive reduction in meat and dairy production, not a technology that produces high quality animal feed. The left therefore especially despises high tech agriculture, not least because one of its pillars has been genetically modified varieties of corn (and a few other crops including soybeans, especially). The left has created a whole superstitious demonology around GMOs, and it hates the fact that Bossie the cow doesn't care if the DDGS she's eating are from GMO corn, and neither does your carburetor care about the ritual purity of the ethanol it is burning. Idiot Karens are easy to scare. Bossie and carburetors can't be scared. So the enviros wage constant guerilla warfare against any and all technologies that provide markets for corn. They really do want us eating tofu and insects, and they will sabotage anything that creates abundance and consumer choice.

I assume you oppose all natural gas pipelines for the same reason? And support California and other insane jurisdictions in banning natural gas hookups in new construction?

We know how to build and operate pipelines safely. We move vast quantities of many materials, some of them hazardous, by pipeline. It is the safest way we’ve yet discovered for moving such materials. And we know how to build redundant cutoffs in the event of a pipeline leak, and as a more routine matter, for regular maintenance.

Can we conjure up pipeline accidents that pose a threat? Sure. Natural gas leaks happen, and houses sometimes blow up. A detector in your house is a good idea.

A break in a CO2 pipeline would lead to the CO2 dissipating back into the atmosphere from which it came, before the corn plants absorbed it during their growth cycle. We’re not talking about a toxic gas here; we’re talking about a natural product of respiration that we ourselves are constantly emitting. If one were enveloped in a cloud of CO2, the theoretical danger would be oxygen deprivation until the cloud had dissipated, which it would, very rapidly. I suppose you can conjure up a scenario where someone could be killed, but it’s vanishingly remote. Remember, this is CO2 that the ethanol plants are emitting into the atmosphere right now. Workers at ethanol plants aren’t keeling over dead. They’re too busy producing ethanol and DDGS, and laughing at enviro fearmongers.

” But for better or worse, that is not the political and regulatory world in which we live. At the rate we’re going, it won’t be long before the enviros want to...”

This is why the GOPe and corporate Repubs LOSE and LOSE and LOSE and LOSE !

They never totally reject Democrat agendas out of hand.

They always try to either “outsmart” them or cash in. But the Dems just keep moving the Overton Window left and left and left in a ratchet.

Every “Conservative” party in the West is like this - concede leftist premises, then quibble about the details.

That’s why we have lost everything. That’s why the left has won everything.

And that is why our only hope to get out from under their tyranny is Regime collapse due to their incompetence.

We have no ability to free ourselves by our own efforts.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.