Capturing and storing carbon dioxide is also a massive waste of resources and causes other harms
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (January 22, 2025) – Carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects have become an increasingly popular method by which climate activists pursue their ultimate goal of global “net-zero” carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. A new paper by The Heartland Institute urges policymakers to push back against CCS projects, which often entail the use of eminent domain to seize private property from landowners.
The paper, titled Carbon Capture & Property Rights: There Is No Justification for Using Carbon Capture and Storage Projects to Abrogate Property Rights, begins with a brief background of the chain of events and overarching agenda that has spawned CCS and an explanation of the CCS process. It then covers the significant public health and environmental problems that can be the direct result of CCS projects, as well as the massive public-private partnerships and funding mechanisms that incentivize the proliferation of CCS.
The paper concludes by clarifying how CCS indeed poses an imminent threat to Americans’ fundamental private property rights and providing specific recommendations for state and federal policymakers to protect those rights and push back against the green agenda.
Some of those recommendations from authors Jack McPherrin, H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., and Daylea DuVall Camp include state policymakers eliminating or mitigating the ability for CCS companies to use eminent domain by addressing common carrier designations, and federal policymakers both ceasing the regulation of CO2 as a harmful pollutant and cutting off funding for CCS projects.
Read the full paper here.
The following statements from climate and energy experts at The Heartland Institute may be used for attribution. For more comments, refer to the contact information below. To book a Heartland guest on your program, please contact Director of Communications Jim Lakely at [email protected] and (cell) 312/731-9364.
“Efforts to foist carbon capture and storage (CCS) initiatives on the energy sector represent a government-backed boondoggle. CCS is scientifically unjustified because we don’t face a climate crisis, as well as economically harmful by raising energy costs. And, in the grift of all grifts, CCS results in the forced sale of peoples’ property. No one should be forced to allow a CCS pipeline to be built across their land, as it serves no public purpose; rather, it just accrues unjustified profits to politically connected green-energy promoters. Politicians and public utility commissions should act to specifically preclude CCS companies from using eminent domain to violate peoples’ constitutionally guaranteed property rights.”
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D.
Director, Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
“Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is, simply put, a scam of epic proportions. CCS projects entail the funneling of billions of taxpayer dollars to private green-energy companies, which increases energy costs for consumers while simultaneously inflicting tremendous damage to the environment and public health. Perhaps most importantly, this proliferating scheme presents a direct assault upon Americans’ fundamental property rights by forcing unwilling landowners to sell portions of their property to enrich private companies through the use of eminent domain. This is both highly immoral and flagrantly unconstitutional, even under the modern-day, broad justifications for such government-authorized land seizures.
“CCS projects need to be killed in their cradles. There is absolutely no reason for their existence. That goal is attainable, if policymakers follow the recommendations suggested in this paper’s conclusion.”
Jack McPherrin
Research Fellow, Emerging Issues Center
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
“CCS creates environmental safety risks and financial hardship for property owners, their families, their crops and livestock, and our food supply chain by granting private companies eminent domain powers to build pipelines containing dangerous levels of CO2 under and across private property.”
Daylea DuVall Camp
Policy Advisor
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
The Heartland Institute is a national nonprofit organization founded in 1984 and headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our website or call 312/377-4000.