Today, AB 881 – one of the bills currently moving through the legislature that would create a pathway to lift the state’s partial CO2 pipeline moratorium – passed unanimously out of the Senate Environmental Quality committee. The other bill, SB 614, is also expected to be heard shortly. 

California environmental advocates working to alert the public to the dangers of CO2 pipelines and CCS projects released the following statements: 

“California’s leaders must not be fooled. They must resist pressure from the fossil fuel industry and uphold the current moratorium,” said Isabel Penman, Northern California Organizer at Food & Water Watch. “Californians deserve a clean energy future free from fossil fuels and this bill will only move us further from that future while putting our communities in harm’s way.”

“California shouldn’t fall for the snake oil that Big Oil is selling us. Carbon pipelines operate with minimal safeguards and only a patchwork of federal regulations to keep communities safe, said Gabriela Facio, Senior Policy Strategist with Sierra Club California. Lifting the pipeline moratorium will only pave the way for risky and unproven carbon capture – technology with a tragic history of leaks and direct ties to the fossil fuel industry.”

“Prematurely lifting California’s CO2 pipeline moratorium puts communities at risk of potential CO2 leaks,” said Bonnie Hamilton MD, San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility. “Pipeline ruptures could release massive amounts of hazardous concentrated CO2 into our air. This could literally suffocate people in nearby communities, stall cars and block emergency responders. We must protect Californians and keep our moratorium in place.”

Background: 

California’s moratorium on CO2 pipelines was enacted in 2022 to protect California communities from dangerous, woefully inadequate federal pipeline safety regulations. Prematurely lifting the moratorium would put communities at risk of incredibly dangerous, potentially deadly CO2 leaks – and could speed up the greenlighting of CO2 pipelines and carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects. There are around two dozen proposed CCS projects in California, most of which would be located in areas of the state already overburdened by pollution.

The dangers of CO2 pipelines were exposed by a disastrous pipeline rupture in Satartia, Mississippi, which sent dozens of people to the hospital and left some with permanent disabilities from CO2 exposure. The federal pipeline agency, PHSMA, pledged to create new CO2 pipeline safety regulations after that incident but has yet to do so.