Pipe Dream: Rethinking CO2 Pipeline Subsidies

Generous government subsidies are driving major expansions of carbon dioxide pipeline infrastructure throughout the United States. The fossil fuel industry stakeholders who pushed for these subsidies argue that more pipelines would support the transportation of more captured carbon dioxide from power plants and ethanol processing facilities to permanent subsurface storage sites. While such pipeline expansions could potentially reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with certain fossil fuel energy activities, they would also create unjustifiable new environmental and health threats. Major investments in new carbon dioxide pipeline infrastructure likewise promote continued reliance on fossil fuels for decades to come and thereby slow the transition to low-carbon renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar power. This Article highlights the potential adverse impacts of the federal government’s unprecedented carbon dioxide pipeline subsidy regime and argues that such subsidies are not cost-justifiable in an era of increasingly low-cost renewable energy. The Article then identifies specific statutory reforms capable of restoring a more sensible federal carbon dioxide pipeline policy structure.