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Iowans can and should expect more cooperation from a business proposing a project this reliant on public financing and access to private property.
The North Dakota Public Service Commission has shattered any remaining illusion that building carbon capture pipelines is both an obvious win for the public and a slam dunk for government regulators to approve.
The panel on Aug. 4 denied Ames-based Summit Carbon Solutions a siting permit for 320 miles of pipeline in that state.
The Iowa Utilities Board is scheduled to take up Summit’s plans for 687 miles of pipeline in this state beginning in just over a week, on Aug. 22 in Fort Dodge. The Iowa regulator will make an independent judgment under our state’s law, of course, but North Dakota concluded that Summit has not satisfactorily addressed a wide range of concerns. Those concerns are relevant enough in Iowa, and familiar enough, to warrant pushing back the entire timetable.
To start with the most obvious issue: North Dakota is the last stop for carbon dioxide in Summit’s plans; if the company doesn’t have permission to get climate-altering CO2 from ethanol plants all the way to the locations where it wants to inject it into the ground, then its plans for Iowa and three other states are moot.
The North Dakota commission’s unanimous ruling notes potential problems that pipeline opponents in Iowa have raised repeatedly, including damage and ongoing risk to land where the pipeline is buried.
Summit Carbon Solutions’ penchant for secrecy is deeply concerning
Summit “has not provided sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the location, construction, operation and maintenance of the Project will produce minimum adverse impacts upon the welfare of the citizens of North Dakota,” the order says.
That diplomatic legalese reflects a common thread in much of the technical and scientific debate over Summit’s plans: a predilection for secrecy, even though the project proposes to make use of hundreds of millions of dollars of federal tax credits annually and might require approvals to seize private property through eminent domain.
Lawyers for North Dakota landowners were more blunt: “At every step of the process, and with virtually every interaction with landowners, the public, and governmental representatives, Summit has been the proverbial ‘bull’ in a ‘China shop,’” they wrote to the regulators before this month’s decision. “Its arrogance and hide the ball tactics have been on full display during the course of these proceedings. Greater disrespectful, condescending and arrogant conduct by a private business, its employees and representatives, is hard to imagine.”
In Iowa, Summit is pushing back on an administrative law judge’s ruling that it must disclose to other lawyers in the Iowa case unredacted documents that include financial arrangements with ethanol companies for transporting and storing carbon dioxide. The judge said the information would be designated “Highly Confidential — Attorney’s Eyes Only,” keeping non-Summit lawyers from disclosing what they see even to clients, including Iowa Farm Bureau and the Sierra Club. But Summit says its privacy concerns should come first.
Summit has a right to protect its business strategy and other proprietary information and a right to advocate against disclosure. But on the whole, Iowans can and should expect more cooperation from a business proposing a project this reliant on public financing and access to private property.
Summit can back up its conciliatory talk by requesting a delay in Iowa
In a news release Monday reacting to the order, Summit said that “the company is determined to get this right for everyone involved.”
“The goal is simple: to work together, understand everyone’s concerns, and make sure our project fits well with what North Dakota wants for its future, especially in areas like energy and agriculture,” the news release said.
If that’s true, Summit’s leaders can demonstrate their commitment to these goals by making a more compelling case for this project’s necessity to the general public. That has not happened to date; promotion of the pipelines centers almost exclusively on supposed financial benefits for corn farmers and ethanol plants (Summit’s own profits aren’t mentioned). Would tunneling CO2 across the region be a net benefit for the environment? On this point, pipeline advocates seem to default to noting that the government will generously subsidize carbon sequestration projects. That’s not the same thing. Many Iowans are rightly skeptical that more public spending to prop up corn ethanol’s viability is, in the long run, the best policy, even though the ethanol industry has commissioned studies depicting dire economic consequences if pipelines aren’t built.
While the Iowa hearing could last for months, there is no public indication that Summit is prepared to start being more candid about its plans, either in the next two weeks or the next two months or two years.
Summit should ask Iowa regulators for a delay, at least until the company is ready for a new try in North Dakota. If it won’t do that, the Iowa Utilities Board should rethink its aggressive hearing schedule and commit to thorough, careful consideration, however long it takes.
— Lucas Grundmeier, on behalf of the Register editorial board
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