The lawyer told Reuters that the summit project would be re-evaluated if the tax credits were to be eliminated

Author: Leah Douglas

(Reuters) – Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed massive carbon dioxide pipeline project would need to be reassessed if the United States ends tax credits for carbon capture and storage, a lawyer for the company said on Thursday.

Summit intends to capture carbon dioxide from 57 ethanol plants across the Midwest and transport it through a more than 2,000-mile (3,218 km) pipeline to North Dakota to store it underground, which would be the largest project of its kind in the world.

But the proposal relies on the 45-quarter tax credit program, which was expanded by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which offers $85 per ton of sequestered carbon.

New US President Donald Trump has vowed to withdraw all unspent IRA funds, arguing that President Joe Biden’s landmark climate change legislation is expensive and unnecessary. Changing the IRA requires an act of Congress.

Summit attorney Christina Brusven, at a hearing before the Minnesota Commission on Thursday, was asked if the project would still be financially viable if the tax credit were eliminated.

Brusven said the tax credit is critical to the company’s business model and that repeal would “definitely cause a reassessment.”

Minnesota’s PUC voted Thursday to allow a 28-mile (45 km) section of the pipeline in the state. Summit hopes to eventually run 245 miles (394 km) of the pipeline in Minnesota and require additional permitting processes for the remaining miles.

CURE, a Minnesota environmental group that opposes the pipeline, argued that the project’s environmental impact review commission was inadequate.