Carbon measure raises question of eminent domain

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A bill encouraging construction of pipelines to ship captured carbon dioxide to market is being debated in the Montana Legislature, where it’s drawing support — and criticism — over the use of eminent domain.

Representatives of a Norwegian company said the bill is critical to its plans for a $1.2 billion gasification facility in Butte because the plant needs a pipeline to ship carbon dioxide it emits.

House Bill 338, which was debated Thursday in the Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee, would give “common carrier” status to pipelines that move carbon dioxide from plants burning fossil fuels such as coal to locations where it would be injected into underground reservoirs.

Oil and gas pipelines already have common carrier status, which allows the use of eminent domain — or the taking of private property — for the greater good.

“This is not a land-grab bill,” said sponsor Duane Ankney, R-Colstrip. “This bill is simply to carry out commerce in this state.”

The Legislature is in the process of coming up with rules to manage carbon sequestration, in which carbon produced at industrial facilities is captured and stored in underground reservoirs.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that is a chief suspect in climate change. Congress is expected to take up federal regulations limiting emissions of the gas.

Ankney said his bill is about economic development, not carbon sequestration.

In carbon dioxide, owners of power plants have another product to sell from coal combustion, he said, adding they need pipelines to get that product to market.

Matt Leow of the Northern Plains Resource Council and Kyla Wiens of the Montana Environmental Information Center said the legislation is premature because the state hasn’t yet established any rules regulating carbon sequestration.

They also said giving the pipelines carrier status would infringe on private property rights.

“It’s just not appropriate to provide that power without legitimate public good coming out of it,” Leow said.

Ankney said he was asked to carry the bill by Norwegian company REC Silicon, which owns a silane gas plant in Butte.

The company, frustrated by up-and-down electricity prices, is investigating building a facility using Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle, a technology that turns coal into gas.

The company hopes to capture the carbon dioxide from the gas stream, but needs a place to sequester it and a pipeline to get it there, REC’s Lon Topaz said.

Granting carrier status to carbon dioxide pipelines would help the feasibility of the IGCC project, he said. The company will decide in a few months whether to pursue construction.

“The biggest issue that’s kept us from committing to this plant is the question of the capture and sequestration of the carbon dioxide,” he said.

Topaz added that the company would not build the pipeline.

Evan Barrett, chief business development officer for the governor’s office, spoke in favor of the legislation, saying it was a key component of developing the state’s energy economy.

The committee took no action on the bill. The House previously approved it by a vote of 90 to 9.