Op/Ed: Summit's CO2 Pipeline a Major Boondoggle
Spearheaded by Iowa agribusiness tycoon Bruce Rastetter, this $8.9 billion scheme to pipe CO2 from ethanol plants across the Midwest to North Dakota’s underground storage sites is shameless.
The Summit Carbon Solutions’ Midwest Carbon Express pipeline is a colossal boondoggle, a taxpayer-funded fiasco masquerading as environmental progress. Spearheaded by Iowa agribusiness tycoon Bruce Rastetter, this $8.9 billion scheme to pipe CO2 from ethanol plants across the Midwest to North Dakota’s underground storage sites is a shameless grab for federal subsidies, trampling the property rights of landowners on some of the world’s most fertile farmland.
Backed by petroleum fracking magnate Harold Hamm’s $250 million investment, the project exploits the 45Q tax credit to line corporate pockets while offering negligible climate benefits. It’s an offensive, foolhardy venture that epitomizes government waste and corporate overreach.
The 45Q tax credit, bloated by the Inflation Reduction Act, dangles $85 per metric ton of CO2 sequestered, incentivizing schemes like Summit’s pipeline. Ethanol plants, which release high-purity CO2 during fermentation, are prime targets for Rastetter to cash in, capturing CO2 and shipping it off for burial. Rastetter, a political heavyweight with at least $2.2 million in political donations to his name, saw a golden opportunity to milk taxpayers. His Summit Carbon Solutions claims the pipeline will slash ethanol’s carbon intensity, boosting its marketability.
But the real payoff is the 45Q windfall—potentially billions in credits for sequestering CO2 that could better be utilized on-site for methanol or sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Instead, Summit opts for the most invasive, least innovative path, strong-arming landowners to make it happen.
The pipeline’s route slashes through Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, and the Dakotas, targeting the Midwest’s agricultural heartland. This isn’t just any dirt—it’s some of the planet’s most productive farmland, yielding corn and soybeans that feed the nation. Yet Summit, with its army of lawyers and lobbyists, demands easements through eminent domain, a grotesque abuse of power. Eminent domain, meant for public use like roads or bridges, is here twisted to serve private profit. Since 2022, the Iowa Utilities Board has been flooded with objections from farmers facing coercion to surrender their land.
After ousting 14 Rastetter Republicans, South Dakota’s new legislators, coupled with a huge groundswell driven public referendum that repealed Summit’s special law, succeeded in passing into law a flat out ban on eminent domain for CO2 pipelines. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ 2025 veto of HF 639 property rights legislation further exposed the corrupt collaboration between Rastetter’s Summit Carbon Solutions, Rastetter Republican Senators, and Governor Reynolds.
Rastetter’s track record only deepens the outrage. This is the man behind a failed Tanzanian land deal seeking to have 802,500 acres of farmland condemned, thereby displacing 160,000 people, many of whom are subsistence farmers. Why would the governor veto a property rights bill for a man accused of displacing refugees who is now peddling a pipeline with dubious environmental credentials?
Harold Hamm, the fracking baron bankrolling Summit, brings his own baggage—decades of profiting from carbon-intensive industries while now posing as a green savior. Their involvement reeks of opportunism, leveraging 45Q to funnel public funds into private coffers. John Deere and Tiger Infrastructure Partners, TPG Rise Climate, and other investors, join this parade of profiteers, betting on taxpayer largesse to pad their portfolios. There is no doubt Chinese Communist Party (CCP) money is invested in their partners.
The pipeline’s environmental claims are laughably thin. Pumping CO2 through 2,500 miles of pipeline to North Dakota for storage doesn’t innovate; it perpetuates a petroleum-heavy status quo. Alternatives exist—ethanol plants could convert CO2 into methanol on-site, feeding into SAF production without a single pipeline. Such processes, already in development, could slash carbon intensity and qualify for 45Z clean fuel credits, all while respecting property rights. But Summit’s pipeline sidesteps innovation for the easy money of 45Q, burdening taxpayers with the cost of an unnecessary, invasive project.
Why would “We the People” grant Rastetter and his cronies a quasi monopoly on arguably the largest mass of the purest form of CO2 in the world when we can value add to it here at home. Free Soil Foundation has called them out, defending Constitutional property rights, pointing out the risks of CO2 pipeline ruptures such as Satartia, MS, and identifying the “kill zones.” Sound over the top? What do you think they use to kill hogs at slaughter plants? What killed 1746 people near Lake Nyos in 1986? What accidentally kills ~ 90 people each year in the United States alone? Now you know the answer and why Summit will not admit to it—CO2.
Taxpayers are left footing the bill for this absurdity. The 45Q subsidy, projected to cost trillions over its lifetime, simply sinks us further into debt. Rep. Scott Perry’s 2025 push to repeal 45Q underscores its flaws, arguing it enriches ethanol and petroleum giants under a green veneer.
Meanwhile, farmers face bulldozers on their ancestral lands, their livelihoods threatened for a project that serves corporate greed over public good. The Midwest Carbon Express isn’t progress—it’s a taxpayer-funded travesty, a monument to the folly of subsidizing private ventures that desecrate property rights.
In sum, Summit’s pipeline is an egregious waste, a subsidy-soaked scheme that prioritizes profit over people. Rastetter and Hamm’s involvement only amplifies the stench of cronyism. By bulldozing the Midwest’s best farmland and exploiting eminent domain, this project and the actions of Summit violate multiple Constitutional rights. Summit has filed at least 238 lawsuits, mostly against landowners.
That’s a lawsuit for every 10.5 miles of proposed pipeline and the lawsuits for actual eminent domain of easements has yet to begin!
They have pushed and sometimes passed laws in the states to change the rules in the middle of the game. It’s time to ditch this boondoggle and repeal AOC’s entire Green New Deal, especially the 45Q. We call on Congress to protect the Corn Belt from corporate plunder.
Steve King
Steve King is former politician and businessman who served as a U.S. representative from Iowa from 2003 to 2021.
Click here for the Freesoil Foundation Website
This Week In Energy republishes their articles, features and stories online and/or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
Everyday your story is being told by someone. Who is telling your story? Who are you telling your story to?
Email your sustainable story ideas, professional press releases or podcast submissions to thecontentcreationstudios(AT)gmail(DOT)com.
CLICK HERE FOR SPECIAL PARAMOUNT + DISCOUNT LINK
Two mob families clash in a war that threatens to topple empires and lives.
Starring: Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren
Paramount+ offers its subscribers a plethora of quality content.
From instant classic films to banger TV shows like 1883 and Smile 2, there’s no shortage of entertainment to explore.
How about the new series Happy Face? It’s getting fabulous reviews.
Start Streaming Today!
CLICK HERE FOR SPECIAL PARAMOUNT + DISCOUNT LINK
