Summit Carbon Solutions found success in federal court this last week against Iowa counties that attempted to regulate the planned carbon pipeline, giving a renewed boost to the future of carbon capture for the region’s ethanol producers.
According to Iowa Public Radio/Iowa Capital Dispatch, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision, similar to attempts to place setbacks on pipelines in South Dakota, barred Iowa counties from setting their own standards when federal regulations are preemptive:
A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld lower court decisions barring counties from imposing safety standards on a pipeline subject to federal safety standards.
The cases involved Summit Carbon Solutions, the company proposing to build a carbon sequestration pipeline through the state, and county supervisors from both Story and Shelby counties.
Summit sued the counties in 2022 for enacting ordinances that required county-specific setback requirements and other regulations the company argued were preempted by federal pipeline safety laws.
and..
Writing for the appeals court, U.S. Circuit Judge Duane Benton wrote that the county ordinances “focus” on safety and “repeatedly” mention safety risks associated with the pipeline, which “undermines” the Pipeline Safety Act’s goal of preempting state regulations on safety.
“This holding does not prohibit local governments from considering safety, nor prevent them from enacting all zoning ordinances, as the counties suggest,” Benton said in the opinion. “This court emphasizes the distinction between safety standards — which the PSA preempts — and safety considerations — which the PSA does not preempt.”
The county ordinances also included emergency response requirements and abandonment provisions which the court ruled were also preempted by federal regulations.
With Summit Carbon’s success this last week with the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, the question now is how exactly federal courts might look at laws and regulations which were passed in this state by anti-development interests in an attempt to prevent the carbon capture pipeline project from being built in South Dakota.
Finding success in challenging the Iowa-NIMBY efforts in federal court, could a new legal challenge be brought against the South Dakota-NIMBY laws passed to halt efforts to provide carbon capture for ethanol development over the last year or so?
Could be.
I hope Summit sues South Dakota. I’m tired of these NIMBY’s killing any project that tries to get built. I’ve got kids that will need jobs in the next few years and I would like to keep them in the state but our legislators and county commissioners keep killing economic development projects.
What a Boondoggle these anti-development types have created.
I don’t see how these laws and ordinances can stand federal constitutional scrutiny. A pipeline crossing state lines is a commerce clause issue. One state or county cannot pass laws that impede commerce in another state.
Silly you. In SD freedom means Leola can kill a billion dollar project in Lake Preston.
DakotaNews, Argus, KELO are ignoring that this decision happened after whipping the electorate into a frenzy over county ordinances for the past 3 years. All the headlines and BS sensationalism over the “poor farmers” who were having their land “stolen” and the “brave county commissioners” who passed ordinances to protect landowners. All of that over easements that Summit paid tens of millions to the landowners only to have idiot county commissioners in Lincoln, Minnehaha, Brown, McPherson, Spink and Faulk county pass illegal, useless, and stupid ordinances designed to DELAY DELAY DELAY, a multi-billion dollar project. What a ridiculous mess to have REPUBLICANS fighting to enact more regulation and kill the chance of jobs and new tax revenue to offset the cost of local government. If I lived in any of those counties, I would fight any property tax increases since the county commission killed the opportunity to have a new taxpaying project that would have paid a large portion of the county budget. Instead, these counties wasted time and money to fight to pass these moronic ordinances that will be dismantled. Great job South Dakota! You win the prize for USEFUL IDIOT in the Sierra Club’s strategy to kill production agriculture and energy development in our state.
I live in Brown County and their ordinance has been in place for over two years now. Our is 1500 foot setback and was not for safety reasons. It was more for economic impact. They were very careful to not violate the PHSMA agreement dealing with safety at the time.
I get and understand the frustration but Summit knew these guidelines and tried to get them overturned and the courts let them stand for now.
Sorry buddy, the federal circuit court that upheld the decision has South Dakota too so if anyone files suit against Brown County, they will win and Brown County will have to rescind the ordinance. The geniuses sitting in the commissioner seats in A-town had no right setting that stupid ordinance. They were played for fools by the anti-pipeline attorney Brian Jorde. You know, the guy who killed Keystone XL. But, whatever, maybe the Republican commissioners will get a Christmas card from the Sierra Club for playing the pawn in the Leftists game of killing infrastructure projects.
Summit Carbon Solutions…GO AWAY!
I hate out of state companies coming in and threatening landowners who have had farms in their family for six generations with eminent domain if they don’t sell their land to them.