Ganje: pipeline regulator in the pockets of industry

What now? pic.twitter.com/u4HeDM3klR

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) January 8, 2023

Summit Carbon Solutions wants to dig a trench for a $4.5 billion pipeline that would rip up over 700 miles of unceded tribal lands where thousands of Indigenous Americans are buried and traverse scores of waterways where many ecosystems impacted by pipelines never recover from the disturbance. 

Industrial agriculture is ecocide and for those of us who love the Earth shucks like Summit’s are subsidized corporate greenwashing but ironically many Republicans actually benefitting from reduced greenhouse emissions decry the sequestration of carbon as caving to the Green New Deal. 

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is a US Department of Transportation regulator and David Ganje is an attorney based in Rapid City, South Dakota where he practices environmental law.

CO2 pipelines transport at pressures above 1,900 psi. Natural gas is transported at pressures between 800-1,160 psi. Critics say that the PHMSA has missed congressional deadlines on safety rules because of technical issues, industry pushback and limited staffing, with some rules finished more than a decade behind schedule. One former federal official who is now a pipeline consultant stated in an article that the federal regulatory body, the PHMSA, chose to use an industry-commissioned formula in order to avoid opposition from pipeline companies. What is the current status or readiness and training of local first responders to correctly assist parties or victims in the event of a rupture been addressed? [David Ganje: In consideration of pipelines]

That last question stems from a result of the Trump Organization's rollback of protections that allowed Norfolk Southern to hide what chemicals its train was carrying when it derailed in Ohio creating an environmental catastrophe, putting first responders at risk and poisoning an entire population.

Ethanol has only two thirds the energy density of gasoline or diesel and less than half of what natural gas contains but has an immensely larger carbon footprint. Few farm with gasoline powered equipment and ethanol is being grown with diesel fuel so how is that either conservative or sustainable?