Tonight landowners in Brown County, South Dakota, will pack a joint meeting of their county commission and zoning board to defend their private-property rights. At issue are carbon capture and storage (CCS) pipelines that private, for-profit companies have proposed. Even leftists such as UN advisor Professor Mark Maslin admit that CCS doesn’t work.
But the Biden administration is heavily subsidizing companies that plan to capture carbon dioxide from ethanol plants in five Corn Belt states and funnel it to underground storage in western North Dakota. There it will be used to frack more oil and gas from depleted wells, enriching fossil-fuel companies.
South Dakota landowners have been getting letters from a company called Summit Carbon Solutions warning them that if they do not grant voluntary easements, Summit will invoke eminent domain. Some say it’s nothing more than an illegal land grab:
“While the public may benefit, it’s not a public utility, and the right of eminent domain for the taking of the property for placing it, I don’t think is relevant,” Craig Shaunaman, who owns CK Farm in Aberdeen, South Dakota, told AgWeek TV. “I don’t known that there’s enough scientific data out there that capturing this CO2 and placing it in this formation is the right thing. I really think we can do better than that as a country.”
Landowners have formed a coalition that recently released a television advertisement warning of the dangers of CO2 pipelines:
Throughout these states, landowners are also fighting back at the county level. In Brown County, South Dakota, the commission had previously prepared to enact a 1,500-foot setback ordinance, imposing that as a minimum distance from private property for the pipelines to be installed.
South Dakota farmer Mark Lapka told The New American that Summit — and ethanol co-op Glacial Lakes Energy — objected on the basis that the ethanol industry will collapse without carbon capture. Lapka calls this “an absurd threat,” but the commission is reconsidering regardless. That’s why landowners plan to turn out in droves at tonight’s meeting.
Trent Loos, host of the Protect The Harvest podcast, explains the backstory here:
The ethanol industry was built on a subsidy for ‘clean energy.’ I was not in favor of the subsidy. I am in favor of ethanol, because I believe that’s a tremendous domestic fuel. But what has been the price of the subsidy to the ethanol producers? They’re now being told they need to capture their CO2, put it in a pipeline, take it to North Dakota and bury it. Why is that a problem? CO2’s been demonized. Why exactly? It is a nutrient that enables life. Friends of mine have told me that they purchase CO2, and six months ago it cost $0.17 a pound. Today it costs $0.70 a pound. We’re incentivizing — we’re not incentivizing — we are threatening ethanol plants if they don’t bury their CO2, we’re going to remove your ability to be in business. Folks, this is the most unhealthy thing. In fact, I call it the pipeline of death. Get involved today. Do not let them pipe CO2 and bury it!
South Dakota farmers are encouraging everyone to visit their website SDPropertyRights.com, where they can sign the “Hazardous CO2 Pipeline Condemnation Petition.” Anyone can sign — not just South Dakotans — because this is a private property issue that affects us all. If for-profit companies can take our farmers’ land with government sanction, no one’s property is safe.
