Democratic Governor Pushes Back on Biden’s Green Energy Plan, Signs Law Pumping the Brakes on All New Projects

Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed legislation into law on Thursday regulating new carbon capture sequestration projects in the state.

The law, commonly referred to as the Safe CCS Act, places a two-year moratorium on the construction of carbon dioxide pipelines until either July 2026 or until the Federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issues revised safety regulations on carbon capture projects.

Calls for additional regulation on CCS began in 2020 following a CO2 pipeline rupture in Satartia, Mississippi, that hospitalized 45 people and forced hundreds of others to evacuate, according to the Springfield State-Journal Register. 

“The moratorium on CO2 pipelines and the mandate that pipeline operators pay for and conduct enhanced modeling for emergency planning and first responders are critical steps to better protect Illinois from potential pipeline ruptures,” the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition said in a statement on Thursday.

“In addition, the ‘do no harm’ mandate in the law will ensure that facilities that attempt to capture carbon do not increase dangerous air and climate pollution as a result of CCS projects,” the group said.

New safety requirements for carbon dioxide pipelines as well as a temporary ban on their construction are now in effect after Gov. JB Pritzker on Thursday signed a bill that passed the General Assembly earlier this year https://t.co/N2xRpWNF9w

— Northwest Herald – Shaw Local (@nwherald) July 19, 2024

Nevertheless, for many state lawmakers and agricultural groups, including the Illinois Farm Bureau, the moratorium does not go far enough to satisfactorily address the issues of eminent domain and groundwater pollution.

“While I respect efforts to modernize our energy industry, I fear that this legislation poses far too many significant risks to the citizens of our state, particularly when it comes to potential groundwater contamination and carbon dioxide leaks or ruptures of the pipelines,” Republican Illinois state Sen. Sally Beason said, according to the Daily Journal.

“In addition to those real and present risks, I am also greatly concerned about the eminent domain threats against property owners contained within the law,” Beason said. “The way that the law is written, some landowners who do not quickly choose to sell their rights may receive unfair compensation.”

Debate over carbon capture sequestration has exposed a rift among Democrats, particularly those at the federal level versus those at the state and municipal levels.

While California and Illinois — two states with Democratic governors and state legislatures — are the only ones in the country to have moratoriums on CCS pipelines, rules finalized by the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency in April mandated coal and new natural gas facilities to control 90 percent of their emissions by 2032 in order to stay open.

Additionally, the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allocated $2.25 billion to a Carbon Storage Validation and Testing program, which seeks to provide federal support for CCS and carbon pipeline infrastructure.

Pritzker’s office, the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

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