Washington, D.C. — Today, 13 organizations representing landowners, environmental justice and frontline communities, scientists, and public health advocates opposed to CO2 pipelines sent a letter to House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Rick Graves and Ranking Member Sam Larsen sounding the alarm on the PIPES Act (HR 5301). The Committee passed the bill today.

The letter, facilitated by the national environmental nonprofit Food & Water Watch, calls attention to the inadequate provisions relating to CO2 pipeline safety in the PIPES Act.

“The PIPES Act leaves communities on the frontlines of dangerous CO2 pipeline buildout vulnerable. It must be amended if the public is to be protected. As it stands, this legislation is incredibly inadequate, ignoring the serious safety concerns with CO2 pipelines, and allowing pipeline companies to keep vital safety information from first responders and communities,” said Jim Walsh, Policy Director with Food & Water Watch. “CO2 poses a dangerous threat to our communities as we saw in Satartia, Mississippi in 2020 with a pipeline rupture that sent over 45 people to the hospital. This is not a distant threat — dangerous CO2 pipelines have been proposed across the country. The Senate must move to address these critical issues when they take up pipeline safety later this year.”

The PIPES Act, as stated in the letter, “would leave communities at risk. [The signatories] therefore oppose the bill as written and urge [Graves and Larsen] to pair any reauthorization with clear, enforceable CO2 pipeline safety mandates that center public health, first-responder readiness, and community self-determination.”

The organizations call attention to the need to require public disclosure of safety information and plume dispersion modeling. They outline that in order to protect public safety, Congress must give explicit direction to PHMSA to promulgate binding standards not rely on industry guidelines and standards; and require:

• Odorization of CO2 so releases are detectable by smell;
• Performance-based leak detection and rupture mitigation that require rapid detection of significant flow loss and automatic/remote-operated valves with protective spacing;
• Materials and contaminants controls limiting total contaminates to less than 5% and ensure proper materials are used to help prevent CO2 related corrosion;
• Prevention of the conversion of oil or gas pipelines to CO2 pipelines and vice versa;
• Financial assurance (insurance and bonding) for response, cleanup, and decommissioning.

Representative Casten and Representative Huffman raised similar concerns with the carbon capture industry last week, calling for a moratorium on CO2 injection wells due to significant issues with the overall regulation and oversight of the industry.