Senate committee tables carbon-sequestration bill

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On a party-line vote, Republicans on a Senate panel have killed the session’s only bill to create ground rules for underground storage of carbon-dioxide emitted by future coal-burning power plants in Montana.

The Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee late last week voted 6-5 to “table” or kill Senate Bill 66.

Sen. Ron Erickson, D-Missoula, the bill’s sponsor, said he wants Montana to create guidelines for industry when it wants to “sequester” carbon-dioxide in the ground, to enable new coal-fired plants that can meet environmental demands in the age of global warming.

“I can’t imagine the companies starting the planning without knowing what the rules are going to be, and we were going to give them the rules,” he said Monday.

Carbon dioxide, is considered by scientists to be a major greenhouse gas that is causing global climate change.

The vote to kill the measure also drew criticism Monday from Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat, who said he couldn’t believe Republicans would reject an attempt to help Montana prepare for future coal development.

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“The only coal projects that are going to be built in the future are ones that sequester carbon in some way,” he said. “Montana can’t be the last place to determine what the legal ownership of our (underground) pore space would be, or they won’t build here.”

Schweitzer said he hoped the committee would reconsider its action and perhaps revive the bill.

Industry lobbyists lined up against SB66 at a hearing on the measure Jan. 15, saying it was premature for Montana to act, when the federal government hadn’t yet established its own rules on CO2.

Sen. Jerry Black, R-Shelby and chairman of the committee, echoed some of those concerns Monday, saying Republicans on the panel felt Montana didn’t have to move on the issue yet.

“This will be an issue that has to be addressed in future legislative sessions, when the federal government has issued their rule-making on CO2 and the affordable technology is available,” he said.

Black also said some committee members believe that the debate isn’t settled over whether CO2 is the major cause of global warming.

“Until there is verifiable scientific evidence that CO2 is the culprit, the committee feels that we should proceed with caution,” he said.

Erickson, a retired professor of environmental sciences at the University of Montana, said the question has been settled by Nobel Prize-winning scientists. He said his bill would address questions that must be answered before industry will invest in carbon-capture technology that can enable new coal-fired plants for producing electricity.

SB66 directed the state Board of Environmental Review to adopt rules to regulate underground carbon capture, in cooperation with the Board of Oil and Gas Conservation. It also attempted to define who owns the “pore space” that holds the CO2 underground, who’s liable for any damages caused by the storage, and how mineral and surface land rights are affected.

“This was the bill to give industry the groundwork for moving ahead and planning for new plants (that can capture CO2),” Erickson said.

Killing the measure delays any work on the issue for another two years, he added, and other states, such as Wyoming and West Virginia, already are moving ahead.

Schweitzer said he’d like to see a few “tweaks” to Erickson’s bill, but that it’s important to move forward on the issue.

Waiting for the federal government to act might mean the feds would claim ownership of the pore space, and it’s better if the state decides that issue, he said. For example, the state could claim ownership and say developers need to show a “beneficial use” to inject CO2 into the space, Schweitzer said.