Back in November, we wrote in our post, Coming soon from a cornfield near you: mammoth carbon capture pipeline system: In West central Minnesota counties are along proposed path of $4.5B carbon capture pipeline, that West Central Tribune staff Tom Cherveny reported:
Chippewa, Redwood, Renville and Yellow Medicine counties are among those that may be affected by a proposed Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline project.
Summit Carbon Solutions, based in Ames, Iowa, wants to build a 2,000-mile pipeline to link dozens of ethanol plants in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota.
And there was more in our copy:
Some of the issues raised by the petition resemble concerns raised in Iowa in October. Iowa Public Radio reported in Proposed carbon dioxide pipeline draws opposition from Iowa farmers and environmentalists alike:
The plan to build a carbon dioxide pipeline marketed as “the world’s largest” is drawing opposition from Iowa farmers and environmentalists alike. At a virtual public meeting Tuesday, speakers railed against the proposal by Summit Carbon Solutions to build a sprawling 2,000 mile long pipeline, more than 700 miles of which would pass through 30 of Iowa’s 99 counties. . . .
Landowners and members of the public raised a slate of concerns on Tuesday, including questions about how the pipeline, buried 48 inches below ground, might affect their property values, the productivity of their land, and whether they would shoulder any liability if the pipe leaked or burst.
With the New Year, there's more information, including a cozy bit of cronyism in the USDA. Tom Philpott reports in USDA Secretary Vilsack’s Son Now Works for a Controversial Ethanol Pipeline Project:
To reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the nation’s agribusinesses and farms, US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack favors a “market-oriented, incentive-based, voluntary” approach—one that wields the carrot of government largess, not the stick of regulation. In November, his son, veteran corporate lawyer Jess Vilsack, took a job with an Iowa outfit that could cash in from such a suite of policies.
The company, Summit Agricultural Group, has recently launched a private equity arm with a bold and controversial plan to build a $4.5 million, 2,000-mile pipeline to capture carbon dioxide emitted by 31 corn ethanol plants in the Midwest and bury it underground in North Dakota.
Jess Vilsack now serves as the general counsel of the venture, which is called Summit Carbon Solutions. Its planned pipeline, dubbed the “Midwest Carbon Express,” would count as the “world’s largest carbon capture and storage project when complete,” the company’s website states. So far, the project has drawn investment from venture capital firm Tiger Infrastructure Partners and farm-equipment giant John Deere, Bloomberg Law reports. It will rely on ethanol-friendly policies that Jess’s father has been advocating for his entire political career, from his stint as Iowa governor in the 2000s through his terms as agriculture secretary under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Summit is a sprawling conglomerate that raises beef cattle, consults with meatpacking companies on building and managing large hog-confinement facilities, and owns more than 50,000 acres of Midwestern farmland. Its also has investments in Brazil’s corn-based ethanol industry. In the 2000s, Summit launched and sold major operations directly producing hogs and ethanol in Iowa.
Its founder and CEO, Bruce Rastetter, is a heavyweight in Iowa politics, dubbed by Politico in 2015 as the “real Iowa kingmaker” for his generous campaign contributions and close ties to top Republican politicians, including Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and US Sen. Joni Ernst. In 2016, Rastetter served on then-candidate Donald Trump’s Agricultural and Rural Advisory Committee and landed on the president-elect’s short list to be appointed secretary of agriculture. His donations didn’t always flow exclusively to Republican stalwarts. Tom Vilsack served as governor of Iowa for two terms from 1998 to 2007, and Rastetter gifted $15,250 to his campaigns during that period.
Summit Carbon Solutions’ business model relies heavily on federal farm and energy policies that are friendly to big agribusiness. Corn-based ethanol is propped up by billions of dollars in annual crop subsidies—administered by the USDA—and by the Renewable Fuel Standard, a federal law that requires the gasoline industry to use 15 billion gallons of ethanol annually. The RFS as currently structured lapses in 2022; Biden’s Environmental Protection agency has statutory authority to set ethanol-use requirements in the years after.
And Summit’s business model appears to depend on the kind of government incentives that the Biden administration in general, and Tom Vilsack in particular, have been pushing to address climate change. The biggest one is the federal tax credit for carbon sequestration, known an Section 45Q, which offers companies a tax break of $50 per ton of metric carbon stored for projects that launch before 2026. The break can be utilized for up to 12 years.
Well, jeepers. We can only conclude that when it comes to benefitting one's family at the public trough, the Vilsacks make our earnest governor Kristi Noem and her daughters look like visionless yokels. On Tuesday, the Associated Press's Stephen Groves reported in South Dakota Agency Head Resigns Amid Scrutiny of Gov. Noem:
The director of a South Dakota agency has resigned amid scrutiny over Gov. Kristi Noem’s hands-on role in the agency prior to his arrival and as it was evaluating her daughter’s real estate appraiser license in 2020.
Scott Amundson, who took over the state’s Appraiser Certification Program last summer, told The Associated Press on Monday he had resigned but declined to publicly comment on his reasons for doing so. Amundson last year replaced the longtime director of the Appraiser Certification Program, Sherry Bren, after she was pressured to retire by Noem’s cabinet secretary during an episode that has drawn criticism of the governor from government ethics experts.
A legislative committee looking into the issue has focused on events that happened prior to when Amundson took over, and he has not faced questioning from lawmakers about his leadership of the agency. Lawmakers have largely focused on a meeting the governor summoned Bren to while she was head of the agency.
Bren has told lawmakers that at the July 2020 meeting, which also included the governor’s daughter, Kassidy Peters, and Noem’s cabinet secretary, an agreement was formed that gave Peters an unprecedented third opportunity to meet federal requirements to obtain her appraiser license. . . .
Perhaps a few years in government will prompt Noem to aim higher; she and the kids are still young.
Related posts:
- Coming soon from a cornfield near you: mammoth carbon capture pipeline system:
- Carbon capture in the news & an early March forum
- Reuters: Before being mothballed, problems plagued Petra Nova carbon capture project
- Project Tundra's clean coal; or, does Petra Nova project's tech really reduce carbon emissions?
- Cost of coal: Great River Energy to close Coal Creek power plant, wind power's gain.
Photo: The Granite Falls Energy ethanol plant is shown in this file photo.Tom Cherveny / West Central Tribune file photo
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