Iowa’s biofuel lobby is staking its future on carbon capture and sequestration.
That’s why it’s issuing dire warnings this week to lawmakers in Des Moines who are considering putting new strictures on the construction of CO2 pipelines. [emphasis, links added]
Republicans in the state House of Representatives introduced the bill yesterday, leading IRFA head Monte Shaw to say lawmakers are threatening the “single most important technology we have to keep liquid fuels like ethanol competitive with electric vehicles in the rapidly growing low-carbon transportation markets.”
The details: The legislation would require a CO2 pipeline project to acquire 90% of the needed route by voluntary easement before eminent domain could be authorized.
It would also prevent the state utility board from granting a permit for CO2 pipelines unless it [complies] with local zoning ordinances and permits.
Measures in the legislation have support from a variety of interests, including environmental groups like the Sierra Club, as well as the Iowa Farm Bureau.
“I have an issue with other people’s property being taken for what is an economic development project, and I think that’s where we confuse public use for public benefit,” bill supporter and GOP Rep. Steve Holt said last week.
Iowa Renewable Fuels Association is pushing hard against the legislation. Shaw is at the state capitol today lobbying against it.
IRFA says the regulations would create a “de facto ban” against CCS projects and threaten the future of the ethanol industry, which is king in Iowa.
“Future CCS projects by ethanol producers or other industries would be at particular risk, as short feeder pipelines (leading from the new projects to existing CO2 pipelines) could be left at the mercy of literally one landowner,” the group said in a policy brief shared yesterday.
Consideration of the legislation comes after the publication earlier this month of an IFRA-commissioned study that concluded CCS to be a saving grace for ethanol in the age of the green energy transition.
IRFA is hopeful CCS can make ethanol a fuel of the future, one that can viably compete against electricity as more states adopt clean-car regulations requiring a phasing out of new sales of vehicles powered by internal combustion engines.
Read more at Examiner
Going all EV over this whole thing shows liberal Eco-Freaks based everything upon ideology not facts