Election Day Victory
Pipeline Fighters —
Please join us in celebrating our victory at the polls in South Dakota on Election Day!
Voters in S.D. overwhelmingly rejected Referred Law 21 (60%-40%), throwing out a new law backed by the CO2 pipeline industry that would have stripped away all local control from counties.
The associated bill in the South Dakota Legislature (SB 201), passed after a massive lobbying effort from Summit Carbon Solutions’s direct financial partners, and enabled pipeline companies like Summit to simply ignore the ordinances that counties have enacted to protect their communities from dangerous CO2 pipelines.
But impacted landowners and communities in South Dakota didn’t stand down. They rallied and gathered enough signatures to challenge SB 201 at the ballot, and protect the voice of landowners and their county boards who called for and passed commonsense protections through their ordinances.
Summit’s financial partners in the multistate CO2 pipeline and “Carbon Capture and Storage” (CCS) scheme likely spent over $3 million backing Referred Law 21, with campaign ads that focused on “money for schools” and made no mention at all of CO2, or associated dangers from pipeline ruptures.
Meanwhile, with a total budget of less than $300,000, landowners and fellow opponents of Referred Law 21 like Dakota Rural Action highlighted safety concerns with CO2 pipelines and CCS through mostly radio and online ads, while also holding grassroots meetings across the state.
A statewide poll conducted in late October (KELO / Emerson College) found 40% opposed and 36% in favor of RL 21, with the remaining 24% unsure. A poll commissioned by Bold Alliance and conducted by Embold Research found 81% of voters across six Midwest states impacted by potential CO2 pipelines say they oppose corporations utilizing eminent domain for private projects.
The final vote in S.D. on Election Day (results) showed that landowners and communities potentially impacted by CO2 pipelines and other risky fossil fuel projects can get organized, and win victories against powerful corporations that are willing to spend millions on lies to trample property rights and force dangerous projects into communities that don’t want them.
In addition to on Election Day, landowners with the South Dakota Easement Team also won a recent victory at the South Dakota Supreme Court, which found Summit had not yet proven that it qualifies to use eminent domain against landowners in the state.
ORGANIZING ACROSS THE MIDWEST
Meanwhile, landowners in North Dakota impacted by the proposed underground CO2 waste well dumps challenged the state’s “amalgamation” laws, an extreme form of eminent domain where nonconsenting landowners are forced to participate if 60% are participating. The Northwest Landowners Association also previously successfully challenged a different state law related to pore space, with the North Dakota Supreme Court ruling that one unconstitutional in 2022.
In Illinois — another state targeted by industry to site underground CO2 waste well dumps, agribusiness corporation ADM experienced leaks of CO2 at monitoring wells at its flagship CCS facility in Decatur, Ill., and made no mention to local communities or state legislators voting on CCS-related bills last year. For this year’s session, organizers are urging advocates to support bills that would ban CO2 sequestraion underneath and through the Mahomet Aquifer and its recharge areas.
Landowners in Indiana impacted by proposed CO2 waste well dumps from Wabash Valley Resources had their appeal of the company’s EPA permits heard by that agency’s Environmental Appeals Board last month.
Landowners with the Iowa Easement Team, along with several Iowa counties, and a coalition of state lawmakers, filed lawsuits to appeal the approval of Summit’s pipeline permit by the Iowa Utilities Commission, while separately the Iowa Supreme Court heard landowners’ arguments that Summit’s surveying violates the state constitution.
BOLD ALLIANCE
Bold’s resident pipeline expert and attorney Paul Blackburn presented during a recent Congressional Briefing: CO2 Injection Well Safety and Health Concerns, and published a report for the Pipeline Fighters Hub on Understanding Computer Plume Modeling for Carbon Dioxide Pipeline Ruptures. Paul will also be speaking on a panel at the Pipeline Safety Trust’s upcoming annual conference in New Orleans, Nov. 21-22. (Landowners are encouraged to attend the conference for free, and can also receive sponsored lodging and travel expenses. Reach out to info@pstrust.org to learn more and register.)
We’ll head into the holiday season thankful that hard work has led to victory in South Dakota, while continuing to organize with our partners across the Midwest against eminent domain and CO2 pipelines — and supporting the work of other Pipeline Fighters across the country.
Thanks for standing with us.
The Bold Alliance team
