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An Ohio bill that would establish rules for underground carbon dioxide storage is being shaped behind the scenes by oil and gas companies that stand to benefit from the legislation.
House Bill 170 would pave the way for companies to pump waste carbon dioxide from industrial plants and hydrogen production deep underground as a way to lower their emissions. Companies would lease subsurface property rights long-term and eventually transfer liability for the stored waste to the state.
Oil and gas industry groups have been busy for months vetting bill sponsors, drafting legislation, writing talking points for lawmakers, meeting with regulators, and coordinating with other industry stakeholders.
Industry lobbyists often play an active role in pushing for legislation that will favor them. But public records shared with Canary Media by Fieldnotes, a watchdog group that investigates the oil and gas industry, show that the American Petroleum Institute and the Ohio Oil and Gas Association have played an outsize role in shaping the bill.
Supporters say carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS, is necessary to lower greenhouse gas emissions that drive human-caused climate change, especially for hard-to-electrify industries. As lawmakers and regulators craft rules for the technology, the stakes are high, with potentially large risks and rewards for industry and the public.
Carbon capture is “the new Wild West…where there is a lot of money to be made,” said Jennifer Stewart, the American Petroleum Institute’s director of climate and environmental, social, and governance policy, at a hearing on last year’s carbon capture bill in the Ohio Senate. She suggested that tax credits could offset the costs of reducing greenhouse gas pollution and that companies could also sell carbon offset credits to other businesses.
Left unsaid was that the petroleum industry was then facing Biden-era emissions rules for natural gas plants, which an aide for bill sponsor Sen. Tim Schaffer (R-Lancaster) flagged in an internal memo as “the reason for the push for carbon capture.” The aide’s memo cited an American Petroleum Institute summary of what carbon capture “is and why it is good for the oil and gas industry.”
Although the Trump administration now proposes to repeal those rules, the oil and gas industry still faces increased competition from renewables as the energy transition continues. Carbon capture and storage could serve as a way to continue promoting their products.
Ohio is not alone in the push for carbon capture laws. More than 20 state legislatures have passed or have been considering such bills, according to a spring 2024 presentation by the American Petroleum Institute.
The laws are necessary if states want a lead role on permitting and regulating wells to pump waste carbon dioxide deep underground. As of May 30, four states already had federal approval for that role, called primacy. Nine others had applied.
The public records shared by Fieldnotes show that during the last legislative session, spanning 2023 and 2024, people at the American Petroleum Institute and the Ohio Oil and Gas Association vetted Rep. Monica Robb Blasdel (R-Columbiana) as a potential bill sponsor. Industry representatives offered to arrange media opportunities for Sen. Al Landis (R-Dover). They also provided talking points and supplied wording for initial one-page “placeholder” bills. Robb Blasdel, Schaffer, and Landis introduced identical one-page bills in December 2023.
In February 2024, the industry groups sent a draft substitute bill, with details for the carbon capture program. Ohio’s Legislative Service Commission, which reviews bills for form, clarity, and fiscal impacts, raised questions about the bill with Schaffer’s office. His office had the Ohio Oil and Gas Association provide answers.
Also that winter, the petroleum association sent Robb Blasdel’s office the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ alternative bill language “in response to the industry draft bill.” The group subsequently supplied her office with an analysis of differences in the industry’s and agency’s language. The agency generally wanted industry to pay higher initial fees, provide financial bonding, and wait decades longer before the state assumed liability for closed wells, along with other stricter provisions.
Although representatives from the industry groups met with staff from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to discuss terms in May 2024, staff members apparently didn’t talk with Robb Blasdel about the bill until months later. “This will be our first convo with Rep. Blasdel about the subject,” wrote Benjamin Bruns, the agency’s legislative affairs director, on September 12.
A detailed bill was finally swapped out for the earlier placeholder version in the House Natural Resources Committee last December. Along with Robb Blasdel, representatives of both the Ohio Oil and Gas Association and the American Petroleum Institute spoke in its favor.
Despite HB 170 and Senate Bill 136 having terms nearly identical to those of the 2024 substitute bill, Schaffer’s aide gave both petroleum groups a chance for advance review before the bills were introduced this year. House Rep. Bob Peterson (R-Sabina) is now a cosponsor with Robb Blasdel. Replacing Landis as a cosponsor of SB 136 is freshman Sen. Brian Chavez (R-Marietta), who has worked and owned companies in the oil and gas industry. He has not answered Canary Media’s questions about whether the bill might benefit any of his businesses.
After hearings in the Ohio House this spring, Robb Blasdel’s office asked for revised bill language, which the American Petroleum Institute’s representative supplied on June 2. Less than 90 minutes later, her office invited petroleum industry people and others to an “interested party” meeting on June 5. Among them were staff and lobbyists for carbon capture companies and other bill supporters, along with representatives for the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation and the Nature Conservancy, which had identified themselves as interested parties (versus saying they were for or against the bill).
No opponents were invited, despite numerous concerns raised by the Buckeye Environmental Network, the Freshwater Accountability Project, and others, including whether provisions in the bill would infringe on property rights, lower home values, and cause health and safety problems, among other issues.
A new substitute bill was introduced during the June 18 meeting of the House Natural Resources Committee, which Robb Blasdel chairs. More hearings are planned for the fall.
Besides documenting industry’s push for Ohio to pass a carbon capture and storage law, the public records raise questions about whose interests lawmakers are serving.
As Fieldnotes researcher Julia Kane sees it, industry groups that stand to profit have “been in the driver’s seat of this process…I’d think in a democracy you’d want the lawmakers looking out for the interests of the public and talking to all the stakeholders,” she said.
Neither Chavez nor Schaffer responded to Canary Media’s requests for comment. Peterson’s aide, Kylie Fauber, said the representative would defer any comments to Robb Blasdel. She has not answered Canary Media’s questions for this story.
The American Petroleum Institute “regularly engages with policy makers on both sides of the aisle to educate on the critical role of American energy and to share our industry’s priorities,” said Christina Polesovsky, the organization’s associate director for Ohio, in response to Canary Media’s questions about critics who see the group as having outsize influence. She added that the group has provided on-the-record testimony through the committee process.
The Ohio Oil and Gas Association did not answer Canary Media’s request for comment for this story.
Opposing parties have also testified, and Robb Blasdel met with two representatives of the Buckeye Environmental Network on June 4. But they and other opponents were left out of the “interested party” meeting on June 5, before the most recent substitute bill was introduced.
“The cake is most of the way baked, and the oil and gas industry kind of set the foundation for the entire conversation,” Kane said.
While the extent of industry’s involvement in the carbon capture bills wasn’t clear before the most recent batches of the public records were released to Fieldnotes this spring, it’s not necessarily surprising.
“This is the system that we’re in,” said Stephanie Howse-Jones, a Cleveland City Council member who served for seven years as a Democratic representative in the Ohio House. Lobbyists often provide draft bills and talking points. Lawmakers often use those talking points when speaking about legislation, but they don’t always read the full text of their bills, she noted.
Howse-Jones said Ohioans need to understand specifically how bills will impact them and their communities. Getting that information may be more challenging after Ohio’s latest budget bill changed the state’s public records law to shield lawmakers’ notes and some internal communications from disclosure until the next legislative session. But more transparency isn’t enough, she said.
“Ohioans must demand more of their state legislature,” Howse-Jones said. Until campaign finance reform takes place, “most of us won’t be able to compete with the dollars. But we do have organizing-people power.” That goes beyond voting and includes taking an active role in organizing and communicating constituent concerns, she said.
Tristan Rader (D-Lakewood) said he hasn’t made up his mind about the carbon capture bills but has questions, especially whether the waste will escape from the underground spaces in which it will be stored. Yet he sees an imbalance in power at the legislature, where industry often holds more sway.
“The real problem is that the communities that are impacted by the activity of these organizations’ wells have a very minimal presence and limited input. And it’s not for lack of trying,” Rader said.
PIPELINES: Federal pipeline regulators for the first time propose guidelines for pipelines transporting gaseous carbon dioxide, including a requirement that operators prepare first responders for emergencies. (Iowa Capital Dispatch)
ALSO: Public safety and agriculture concerns competed with economic development arguments as hundreds of people, mostly opponents, packed a South Dakota hearing on a CO2 pipeline permit. (South Dakota Searchlight)
SOLAR:
FOSSIL FUELS: Michigan House Republicans propose legislation to exempt 13 Upper Peninsula gas plants from the state’s clean energy law, claiming they’re needed for reliability. (WEMU)
CLIMATE: An Iowa Department of Education committee tasked with updating science standards says terms related to climate change were watered down from what they proposed before being released for public comment. (Cedar Rapids Gazette)
NUCLEAR: Federal regulators express concerns over a plant owner’s “very, very demanding” schedule to reopen its shuttered Michigan nuclear plant by this fall. (Michigan Public)
BIOGAS: Iowa regulators fine a dairy farm $20,000 for starting construction without a permit on portions of a manure digester system that would produce biogas from methane. (Cedar Rapids Gazette)
WIND: Utility officials say a planned 112-turbine wind project in North Dakota would provide a $100 million boost to the local economy. (Grand Forks Herald)
RENEWABLES: Michigan rules shifting authority over wind and solar projects to state regulators will remain in effect as dozens of local governments challenge the new law, a state appeals court rules. (MLive, subscription)
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Work headed by an Ohio waste-to-energy company to make plastic from biodigester byproducts is among seven projects recently selected for federal grants to develop new ways to use captured carbon dioxide.
The grants aim to advance the federal government’s goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in order to address ongoing climate change.
Quasar Energy Group, headquartered south of Cleveland in Independence, designs and builds anaerobic digesters, in which bacteria break down manure, food waste, or other organic materials. Methane is the systems’ main gas output and can be used to power generators or heat buildings, among other uses.
But anaerobic digesters also produce carbon dioxide, another greenhouse gas which has fewer commercial uses. Customers today include fertilizer manufacturers, oil and gas companies, and food and beverage makers. But those markets are tiny compared to the amount of CO₂ scientists think will need to be removed from industrial emissions, or even pulled from the atmosphere, to deal with climate change.
There’s a limit to how much carbon dioxide will be able to be stored in the ground, and community opposition to pipelines is another barrier to Midwest carbon capture plans. Using the carbon in products — such as cement or plastics — can be a useful alternative, especially if it displaces other fossil fuel inputs.
On Oct. 9, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management announced funding for seven projects aimed at commercializing new approaches to incorporating carbon dioxide into products. The selections are aimed at hard-to-decarbonize sectors, said Ian Rowe, division director for carbon dioxide conversion at DOE’s office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management.
“There’s not going to be a non-carbon solution for those needs in the future, but we should make them from more sustainable forms of carbon,” Rowe said. “And carbon dioxide represents a feedstock that you can use.”
Ohio is already a leader in plastics production that relies heavily on the fossil fuel industry. Hundreds of companies across the state play a role in manufacturing or the supply chain. And midstream processing provides a ready supply of natural gas feedstocks from the Utica shale play.
Quasar Energy’s team designed its process for making plastic so it will work well with biodigesters. Basically, the project will use lipids from algae as a feedstock for a type of polyurethane. Liquid effluent from the biodigester could help grow the algae and supply nutrients for it, such as nitrogen and phosphorus.
Carbon dioxide from the biogester’s gas would be another ingredient in the process. The project team estimates the process could cut carbon dioxide emissions at least 25%, compared to current technology for making the plastic.
The process already works on a bench-scale level in the lab, said Tao Dong, a chemical engineer with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, who is also working on the project. Other team members named in the group’s grant application to DOE include Caixia “Ellen” Wan at the University of Missouri, Xumeng Ge at Quasar, and Ashton Zeller, director of research at Algix.
Costs are an important factor for the Quasar team’s project or any other products aimed at displacing those made from fossil fuel sources. Those costs include expenses for “cleaning up” the biodigester gas to separate methane from carbon dioxide. But a chunk of that expense also can be allocated to the separated methane, which has its own value for energy, either for on-site use or for sale for use elsewhere.
In other words, using the gas for making the plastic and for energy helps the economics for both uses, versus just flaring the gas into the atmosphere.
“Our process can be cost-effective,” said Yebo Li, Quasar’s chief innovation and science officer.
The plastic made from the process also has an advantage from being a non-isocyanate polyurethane, said Mel Kurtz, president of Quasar. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration links isocyanates to various health problems, and some are potential carcinogens. So, a polyurethane plastic that doesn’t have them should reduce risks for workers at factories who would then use the material to manufacture products, such as shoes or other items.
“If [farms] can add another revenue stream, that can improve the economics” for biodigesters on farms, said Andy Olsen, a senior policy advocate for the Environmental Law & Policy Center, whose work focuses on energy issues relating to agriculture and is not part of the project team.
It’s also important to make sure staff are properly trained to use and maintain the equipment properly, Olsen added, noting potential problems with leaked gases. Others question whether emissions offsets from some biodigesters have been overstated.
The Quasar project team still faces hurdles. Work under the grant will focus on identifying and addressing risks so the technology can be scaled up.
One challenge will be maintaining algae ponds over time to provide the lipids for the process. Another will be optimizing the process for making them into small chemical building blocks called monomers and then assembling them into polymers, which are the plastic. Maintaining the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over time also will be important.
Other Midwest grant recipients include LanzaTech, an Illinois sustainable fuels company, and Washington University in St. Louis, which will develop a low-carbon process to convert carbon dioxide to high-quality carbon nanotubes. Those will be tested for use as anodes for lithium-ion batteries.
Whether these and other carbon management projects can scale up quickly enough for the United States to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 is a big question, said Rowe at DOE.
The energy source for the production process will also make a big difference, Rowe said. Algae can make their own food with carbon dioxide and sunlight. But it takes energy to maintain the ponds throughout the year. The equipment to process the algae and then make the lipids and biodigesters’ carbon dioxide into polyurethane also needs energy.
“Carbon management strategies go hand in hand with an increased deployment of cheap clean electricity. So, a lot of these won’t work without the other,” Rowe said. On the flip side, “if that energy does not come from clean sources, you’ve just produced something that is worse for the environment than if you dug it up and just used fossil carbon.”
CARBON CAPTURE: Recent leaks at an Illinois carbon storage well have raised concerns among some residents and environmental advocates as the Biden administration ramps up funding for what it sees as a key climate tool. (Grist)
EMISSIONS: The Minneapolis City Council overrides the mayor’s veto of a new fee on large emitters’ carbon emissions after extending the start date and ordering a study to address legal concerns. (Star Tribune)
INDUSTRY: Low-carbon steel making techniques would help reduce air pollution and climate emissions from coal-based iron making furnaces and coke plants that are concentrated in the Midwest, a new report finds. (Canary Media)
RENEWABLES:
COAL:
OIL & GAS: Labor advocates say training unionized oil and gas workers to plug orphaned oil and gas wells would help create jobs and economic security for workers in the field. (New Republic)
EFFICIENCY: A South Dakota rural advocacy group submits a petition calling on Gov. Kristi Noem to reconsider her decision rejecting $69 million in federal funding for home energy efficiency rebates. (South Dakota Searchlight)
NUCLEAR: Democrats in highly competitive U.S. Senate races embrace nuclear energy as a way to attract center-right voters and provide grid resilience. (HuffPost)
CLEAN ENERGY:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
GEOTHERMAL: St. Paul, Minnesota breaks ground on the state’s largest networked geothermal system that will heat and cool buildings as part of a 112-acre redevelopment of a former golf course. (Pioneer Press, subscription)
CARBON CAPTURE: A southern California county greenlights a firm’s proposal to store up to 48 million tons of captured carbon in an old oil and gas field, but advocates say the project is a “convoluted scheme” that incentivizes pollution. (CalMatters)
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WIND: A federal historic preservation agency urges the Bureau of Land Management to require the proposed Lava Ridge wind project in Idaho to avoid impacts to a World War II incarceration facility. (E&E News, subscription)
BATTERIES: A Colorado firm plans to use a $50 million federal grant to scale up production of sulfide electrolytes designed to increase batteries’ energy density and stability. (Big Pivots)
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CLEAN ENERGY:
UTILITIES: Advocates criticize California regulators for approving two utilities’ double-digit rate hikes, saying it will inflame an affordability crisis and slow the energy transition. (E&E News, subscription)
CARBON CAPTURE: The U.S. Energy Department drafts a strategy for developing “dozens” of carbon capture and storage facilities by 2050 and building infrastructure, oversight, and a workforce to serve them. (E&E News, subscription; news release)
ALSO: Exxon Mobil announces it’s secured leases for 271,000 acres in waters off Texas for an offshore carbon capture project. (Reuters)
NUCLEAR: A newly updated U.S. Energy Department report makes a case for immediately launching a buildout of large-scale nuclear reactors in hopes of tripling the country’s current 100 GW of nuclear power capacity. (Canary Media)
COAL: Five of the biggest U.S. coal plants have set dates for closure or a shift to another fuel, and a sixth is reportedly planning to switch to natural gas as well. (Inside Climate News)
GRID:
UTILITIES: Oregon residents file a first-of-its-kind class-action lawsuit accusing the state’s largest natural gas utility of misleading customers about its carbon reduction plan and using that program’s funds to promote fossil fuels. (OPB)
POLITICS:
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ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Delaware will use $14.3 million in federal funding to install chargers along I-95 as part of a multistate effort to reduce the emissions of the trucking industry. (WHYY)
CARBON CAPTURE: A proposed multi-state carbon pipeline would capture emissions from ethanol plants’ corn fermentation process, but wouldn’t address about 7 million annual metric tons emitted by industrial machinery at the plants. (South Dakota Searchlight)
GRID:
NUCLEAR:
PIPELINES:
CLIMATE: A new study finds very little research on the ways that funding from oil and gas companies influences climate research, and whether it may be creating bias or conflicts of interest. (Inside Climate News)
UTILITIES:
SOLAR:
CARBON CAPTURE: Documents show ExxonMobil lobbied aggressively for federal carbon capture subsidies — which stand to reap billions of dollars for the company — despite internal doubts about whether the technology will make a meaningful impact on emissions. (The Guardian)
ALSO: A California company cancels plans to build one of the world’s largest direct-air carbon capture facilities in Wyoming, citing intense competition from data centers for clean energy to power the facility. (Cowboy State Daily)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
OIL & GAS: The Biden administration grants its first gas export permit following a court ruling that blocked its efforts to delay the process. (The Hill)
POLITICS: An energy market expert refutes former President Trump’s claim that he could cut energy prices in half during his first year in office. (NBC News)
BATTERIES: A battery plant in a Pittsburgh suburb that has taken advantage of or is eligible for billions in public funds has created poor working conditions and has fired union-supporting workers, according to some employees. (Pennsylvania Capital-Star)
EFFICIENCY: Some affordable housing developers embrace Passive House building standards that make homes highly energy-efficient with only slightly higher upfront costs. (Energy News Network)
WIND: Vineyard Wind’s broken turbine blade, misinformation campaigns and a lack of forthrightness from offshore wind developers is causing a “public relations nightmare” for the industry. (Rhode Island Current)
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POLLUTION: A federal court rejects a new EPA rule tightening emissions standards for industrial boilers, saying the agency went too far in classifying facilities built before the rule was proposed as “new” pollution sources. (Reuters)
COMMENTARY: A climate advocate explains why his organization is opposing a bipartisan energy permitting bill, saying the legislation’s provisions advancing fossil fuels make the price “simply too high.” (Union of Concerned Scientists)
CARBON CAPTURE: The U.S. has spent more public money on carbon capture and gas-produced hydrogen than any country, a new report finds, even though the technologies remain unproven as cost-effective climate solutions. (The Guardian)
OIL & GAS:
BUILDINGS: The U.S. Energy Department announces $240 million to help state and local governments adopt more efficient building codes. (Utility Dive)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Oakland, California’s school district is the first major district in the U.S. to fully adopt electric school buses, which can send power back to the grid during high demand. (Grist)
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CLEAN ENERGY: Along with the addition of 15 GW of solar, battery and wind over the last year, Texas added 6.6% more clean energy jobs to rank second in the U.S. after Idaho. (Houston Chronicle)
GRID:
POLITICS: Maryland’s election for a U.S. Senate seat could make or break federal climate action by stripping Democrats of their current majority. (Inside Climate News)
OVERSIGHT: Texas prepares to launch a new set of business courts overseen by a panel of judges who have previously represented oil and gas companies, raising questions about whether the new courts lean too far toward fossil fuel favoritism. (The Lever)
COMMENTARY: A columnist details how increasingly cheap and widely available solar power will make once-far-fetched applications possible. (New York Times)
CARBON CAPTURE: Oil companies are pinning their decarbonization hopes on carbon capture projects to reduce their emissions, but rising construction costs and the lagging pace of related infrastructure development are cutting into the value of federal tax credits for the technology. (Houston Chronicle)
EFFICIENCY: Critics slam Kentucky Power for its failure to be more ambitious with its energy efficiency programs amid data showing the utility’s poorest ratepayers used more electricity than average. (Kentucky Lantern)
SOLAR:
OIL & GAS:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Electric vehicle registration in a metro Tennessee county has surged nearly sevenfold since 2019. (Chattanooga Times Free Press, subscription)
GEOTHERMAL: A Houston-based startup announces construction of a 3 MW geothermal energy storage facility on land leased from an electric cooperative at the site of a coal mine and coal-fired power plant. (Houston Chronicle)
GRID: Georgia Power tracks the state’s growing number of data centers and their demand on the power grid, including a company’s proposal to build two more in the Atlanta metro region. (Atlanta Business Chronicle, subscription)
COAL: The family of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice files for an injunction to stop the forced auction of a historic state resort that’s become the crown jewel of the coal baron’s business empire. (WV Metro News)
UTILITIES: A judge denies Texas utility CenterPoint Energy’s attempt to withdraw its request for a rate increase after receiving criticism over its response to Hurricane Beryl, prompting hopes by consumer advocates that regulators may order a rate decrease instead. (Houston Chronicle)
POLITICS: Georgia has received outsized benefits and investment under the federal climate package, but those gains could be undone if Donald Trump wins reelection. (Canary Media)
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