Eminent Domain and 碳捕获技术

In the ongoing effort to address the threat of climate change, the federal government has set an ambitious goal of achieving net zero carbon dioxide emissions by midcentury.  While there is a concerted effort to reduce emissions from each sector of the economy, it is widely acknowledged that the goal cannot be achieved by emission reductions alone.  Instead, some sort of “carbon capture” technology will need to be developed.

碳捕获技术

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act included $12 billion in funding for the development of carbon capture, 使用, 存储技术.  Such technologies would allow carbon dioxide to be captured from stationary emitters, 比如发电厂或工业工厂, 压缩, and then transported via pipelines to suitable underground geologic features where it can be stored without escaping into the atmosphere.

二氧化碳管道

The pipelines 使用d to transport carbon dioxide are not new technology.  Carbon dioxide pipelines have long been 使用d, 主要在德克萨斯及其周边地区, 在提高采收率作业中.  在那些传统用途中, pipelines carry carbon dioxide from natural underground sources to oil wells, where the gas is then pumped into the ground to assist in producing oil that would otherwise be unrecoverable.

不像天然气管道, no federal law governs the siting or acquisition of property for the construction of carbon dioxide pipelines.  因此, proponents of such projects must seek eminent domain authority under state law.  一些州, 包括德州, have developed standards that such projects must meet before a company may 使用 eminent domain power.  在德克萨斯州, 例如, only those pipelines that will be “common carriers” qualify for 使用 of eminent domain.  因此, a pipeline cannot merely serve one company’s wells or facilities and must instead transport product from multiple sources or serve multiple customers on the terminal end.  This means that a company could not exercise eminent domain for a pipeline that would transport carbon dioxide captured from its own facilities to its own storage facilities.  The legal picture is less clear in states that have not yet made specific provision for the exercise of eminent domain for carbon dioxide pipelines or for acquiring the underground geologic features suitable for carbon storage.

碳捕集与封存税收抵免

The federal government has passed a tax credit program to incentivize the development of carbon capture 存储技术.  尽管如此, few projects have been proposed and those that have been proposed, 主要集中在中西部北部, have been met with opposition from landowners and farm operators.  除了安全问题, protesters often argue that a pipeline built by a private company to secure federal tax credits is not a public 使用 that justifies the exercise of eminent domain.

The Biden administration has suggested to Congress that national legislation may be necessary to allow for the siting of pipelines.  If the Natural Gas Act model is followed, that would include allowing the pipeline company to exercise the federal eminent domain power in the acquisition of property necessary for carbon dioxide sequestration infrastructure.  No such legislation has been forthcoming.  Even if federal legislation governing the siting of such pipelines is eventually adopted, it is unclear if it would allow for the exercise of the federal eminent domain power given federalism concerns.  在没有这种立法的情况下, companies seeking to take advantage of the federal tax credits will face a hodge-podge of state legislation, some of which makes no explicit provision for the kind of infrastructure needed for the technology.

马特·赫尔 是一个现金网官网 & 现金网官网 attorney focusing his practice on eminent domain, 通行权, 统一搬迁法案很重要, 当地政府, 以及滨水物权法.