By Leah Douglas
(Reuters) – Summit Carbon Solutions’ massive carbon dioxide pipeline proposal would need to be reassessed if the United States repeals tax credits for carbon capture and storage, a company attorney said on Thursday.
Summit intends to capture carbon dioxide from 57 ethanol plants across the Midwest and transport it along a pipeline more than 2,000 miles (3,218 km) long to North Dakota to be stored underground, in what would be the world’s largest project of its kind.
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But the proposal relies on the 45Q tax credit program, which was expanded by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, offering $85 per metric ton of sequestered carbon.
President-elect Donald Trump has promised to rescind all unspent funds from the IRA, arguing that President Joe Biden’s landmark climate-change law is expensive and unnecessary. Altering the IRA would require an act of Congress.
Summit attorney Christina Brusven, at a hearing before the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission on Thursday, was asked whether the project would still be financially viable if the tax credit was repealed.
Brusven said the tax credit is important to the company’s business model and a repeal “would definitely cause a reassessment.”
The commission voted on Thursday to permit a 28-mile (45-km) segment of the pipeline in Minnesota. Summit hopes to ultimately run 245 miles (394 km) of pipeline in the state and will require additional permits for the remaining miles.
CURE, a Minnesota environmental group that opposes the pipeline, had argued the commission’s review of the project’s environmental impact was inadequate.
Summit also received approval on Thursday from North Dakota’s Industrial Commission to inject and store its captured carbon underground.
The commission’s three members include Governor Doug Burgum, who has been nominated by Trump to lead the Department of the Interior. Burgum has expressed support for carbon capture and storage projects.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas; Editing by Mark Porter, Alexandra Hudson and Rod Nickel)
