Companies looking to build carbon capture pipelines are utilizing the power of eminent domain when property owners won't willingly negotiate easements. In at least some cases, rather than go through the expense of litigating, landowners often agree to sell.
To reach the International Energy Agency's carbon-reduction targets 70 to 100 carbon capture facilities will have to come online every year for the next 27 years. Installing the technology on a single power station in Wyoming would cost nearly $468 million.
Faucheux highlighted the 346,000 jobs and $54 billion economic impact attributed to the oil and gas industry in Louisiana in 2021, arguing that emerging carbon capture technology will play a critical role in maintaining or increasing those numbers.
The legislation could eliminate billions in incentives for companies investing in low-carbon hydrogen and ammonia production.
The captured CO2 is compressed and transported by pipeline, ship, rail or truck to be used in a range of applications, or injected into deep geological formations such as depleted oil and gas reservoirs or salt domes.
PHMSA launched this process in 2020 in the wake of a CO2 pipeline rupture in Satartia, Mississippi, that hospitalized 45 people with life-threatening symptoms and forced 200 people to evacuate the area.
House Bill 783 would require landowners be compensated per acre to "no less than the maximum amount paid to any other landowner in that project."
For about four hours, the fire coordinator in Warren County, Mississippi worked with emergency responders in neighboring Yazoo County to drag dozens of residents to safety, including some that continue to have health issues four years later, Briggs said.
The aquifer serves over 100 communities, businesses, and farmers throughout central Illinois and is vital to the economy.
Residents around the lake, local government officials, attorneys and others highlighted numerous concerns, from environmental risks to declining property values, to a lack of transparency, to issues with mineral and landowner rights.