Thousands of impacted landowners, Tribal Nations, individual counties, cities and other communities across the U.S. have voiced major concerns about the terrifyingly large gaps in regulations on pipelines carrying carbon dioxide (CO2). Right now, developers are proposing a significant number of new interstate CO2 pipelines that would cross Midwest states including Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota and Illinois.

Impacted communities need assurances that safety regulations apply to all CO2 pipelines. At the concentrations found in pipelines, CO2 is an asphyxiant that can be dangerous and even lethal in the event of a rupture. And lower levels of CO2 leakage can contribute to dangerous climate change.

CO2 pipelines are susceptible to ductile fractures, which can, like a zipper, open up and run down a significant length of the pipe. They can release immense amounts of CO2, hurl large sections of pipe, expel pipe shrapnel, and generate enormous craters. Water, notoriously difficult to eliminate from CO2 pipelines, allows the formation of carbonic acid in the pipeline, which has a ferocious appetite for carbon steel.

The U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) existing regulations, however, do not address the above concerns and apply only to pipelines carrying CO2 in a supercritical fluid phase. But these developers are also planning to move CO2 in other phases such as “subcritical liquid,” or gas.

We are encouraged to see that in the aftermath of the Denbury Satartia CO2 pipeline rupture, PHMSA has undertaken a new rulemaking to address some of these existing gaps in federal pipeline safety on CO2 pipelines. But under PHMSA's current public schedule, the new CO2 pipeline rules are not slated to be proposed until 2024.

However, developers that have yet to obtain permits through any state agency permitting processes have already begun to exert eminent domain authority, filing suit against landowners in South Dakota to seize their land against their will for these boondoggle projects.

We urge Sec. Pete and PHMSA to take the following actions:

+ Issue a ruling that assures current regulations apply to pipelines carrying CO2 in all phases.

+ Issue a new letter like PHMSA’s 2014 letter to TransCanada “Re: Role of U.S. Local Governments in Pipeline Safety,” to clear up the confusion and misinformation being spread by CO2 pipeline developers on what actions states, counties, and municipalities may undertake to protect their communities against the dangers of a CO2 pipeline rupture and other concerns.

All operating CO2 pipelines, as well as those new pipelines that are proposing to begin construction before PHMSA's fuller rules are completed, should be subject to minimum federal safety standards — including regular inspections, initial testing standards, integrity management programs, and many other important safety requirements.

In the Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011, Section 15, Congress made clear that PHMSA has the authority to regulate gaseous CO2 and directed the agency to adopt safety standards covering CO2 in its gaseous, as well as supercritical fluid, phases.

The urgency of clarifying that PHMSA’s standards cover all CO2 pipelines, regardless of the physical state in which the CO2 travels, constitutes good cause to act quickly and decisively, pursuant to Sections 553(b)(B) and 553(d)(3) of the Administrative Procedure Act.

As landowners facing eminent domain and community members in the paths of these untested, unpermitted projects that threaten our lives, our livelihoods and communities — we urge Secretary Pete and PHMSA to act now and issue a rule that makes clear existing federal pipeline safety rules apply to all CO2 pipelines.