Speaker 1: Welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westervelt. We are still
Speaker 1: working on this series I mentioned before, Denial to Delay,
Speaker 1: focused on the false solutions that fossil fuel companies are
Speaker 1: proposing to the climate crisis. We've talked about LNG, We've
Speaker 1: talked about the role that management consultancies play in pushing
Speaker 1: false solutions like carbon capture or hydrogen. Today we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about carbon capture. I've been working on a
Speaker 1: story about carbon capture for the last couple months that
Speaker 1: we are co publishing with Vox, and I gotta say
Speaker 1: it's kind of made my head explode. It's one of
Speaker 1: those things where I kept looking at it and thinking
Speaker 1: it can't possibly be as much of a scam as
Speaker 1: it seems like it is, and then every single expert
Speaker 1: I would talk to would make me feel like it
Speaker 1: was even more of a scam. That's definitely true of
Speaker 1: the person, and you're going to hear from today Carolyn Raffensberger,
Speaker 1: who is an environmental lawyer and the executive director of
Speaker 1: the Science and Environmental Health Network. Carolyn introduced me to
Speaker 1: a bunch of experts, but talking to her was a
Speaker 1: great way to kind of get overall context on how
Speaker 1: exactly we got to where we're at with carbon capture,
Speaker 1: Why it's been such a focus as a climate solution
Speaker 1: when even in the best case scenario, which is nowhere
Speaker 1: near our reality, it could only ever help with about
Speaker 1: two percent of global emissions, and yet we're dumping billions
Speaker 1: and billions of taxpayer dollars into it. Why how did
Speaker 1: we get here and what role did oil companies play
Speaker 1: in all of it. One thing that has suddenly made
Speaker 1: fossil fuel companies very interested in carbon capture over the
Speaker 1: last few years is the forty five Q tax credit.
Speaker 1: This pays companies for capturing and storing two. It started
Speaker 1: out in two thousand and eight, paying ten dollars for
Speaker 1: every metric ton of carbon sequestered. In twenty eighteen, that
Speaker 1: number increased to fifty dollars, and the Inflation Reduction Act
Speaker 1: passed in twenty twenty two bumped it up to eighty
Speaker 1: five dollars per metric ton. That increase was negotiated by
Speaker 1: Senator Joe Manchin. It was one of several very controversial
Speaker 1: suggestions he made when negotiating with the Biden administration over
Speaker 1: their Build Back Better Bill, the result of which became
Speaker 1: the Inflation Reduction Act. There's no cap on the amount
Speaker 1: of tax credits a company can claim under forty five Q.
Speaker 1: The amount of stored and sequestered carbon is entirely self reported,
Speaker 1: and there's very little verification process. One expert I talked
Speaker 1: to is that it's like the opposite of a carbon tax.
Speaker 1: We're actually paying companies to produce more carbon. We've turned
Speaker 1: carbon into a commodity. We're going to get into all
Speaker 1: of that and more after this quick break. I want
Speaker 1: to ask you about forty five Q in particular and
Speaker 1: your thoughts on how much it benefits the industry.
Speaker 2: The fact of the matter is that CO two as
Speaker 2: the best solvent for tertiary extraction of oil. And if
Speaker 2: you've got an almost depleted well, there's still oil in
Speaker 2: the ground. You just can't get it out through the
Speaker 2: usual means. But you got that hole in the ground,
Speaker 2: and you've got a stranded asset knowing that it's there,
Speaker 2: and if you just had CO two you could get
Speaker 2: you could keep this well going for another X number
Speaker 2: of years, you know, another twenty years, another thirty years.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of quarterly report money. And so they
Speaker 2: and knew that CO two was a good substance, a
Speaker 2: good solvent for tertiary extraction of oil, but they didn't
Speaker 2: have a supply, and along comes climate, and you know,
Speaker 2: so if you capture CO two, And they started doing
Speaker 2: carbon capture decades ago, a couple of decades ago and
Speaker 2: realized it didn't work very well and it's very expensive.
Speaker 2: But the CO two, if you've got you know, you
Speaker 2: can get a lot of CO two that would keep
Speaker 2: that fossil fuel industry going a long time. So they
Speaker 2: cooked up the scheme to claim that it's a climate solution,
Speaker 2: but oh my gosh, it just happens to provide a
Speaker 2: steady supply of this incredible solvent that's expensive to collect
Speaker 2: and then you know, move around the globe. And so
Speaker 2: this is an ideal scheme where they can claim climate
Speaker 2: solution even though we know that it just adds more
Speaker 2: CO to to the environment and er is the absolute
Speaker 2: worst idea if you're talking about climate. But they don't
Speaker 2: need it in a steady flow, so they're going to
Speaker 2: need it in kind of episodic quantities, and so we're
Speaker 2: better than to claim to store it underground. And if
Speaker 2: you can store it underground near old oil wells, how
Speaker 2: much the better. And if you can claim that you're
Speaker 2: storing it in the old oil wells and oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: you just happen to get more oil out of it.
Speaker 2: This is a win wind for the fossil fuel industry.
Speaker 2: You get to keep polluting and drilling more, getting more oil,
Speaker 2: not drilling but extracting more oil, and you have the
Speaker 2: public pay for the CO two and then you get
Speaker 2: more money for the oil. This is an extraordinary thing
Speaker 2: you can do. You get to sell the say Sanol,
Speaker 2: at a higher price because it's quote carbon neutral or
Speaker 2: whatever else they're whatever they're else they're claiming about it.
Speaker 2: You can sell it to California under their low carbon
Speaker 2: fuel standard and get more money. You can create holding
Speaker 2: markets for a sustainable aviation fuel. Is that this is
Speaker 2: just an unbelievable pot of gold at the end of
Speaker 2: the carbon capture rainbow.
Speaker 1: I hadn't even thought about the sustainable aviation fuel connection,
Speaker 1: to which is exploding right now.
Speaker 2: So look at what the Air Resources Board CARB is
Speaker 2: claiming in California and what they're going to do with
Speaker 2: the low carbon fuel standard. I had an LA times
Speaker 2: op ed two years ago. I think about California, what
Speaker 2: the low carbon fuel standard is going to do in
Speaker 2: conjunction with carbon capture and storage for ethanol in Iowa.
Speaker 2: So that are we're going to increase corn production in Iowa,
Speaker 2: which means we're going to do everything from increase the
Speaker 2: water consumption remarkably, and we're going to do everything from
Speaker 2: increased the pesticide use, the fertilizer use, which means we're
Speaker 2: going to add to the dead zone in the Gulf.
Speaker 2: It goes on and on, and nobody's looking at all
Speaker 2: of the sequella. The consequences that they're going to claim
Speaker 2: are unintended and they're not going to consider in their
Speaker 2: overall models and environmental impact statements. And anytime a scientist
Speaker 2: comes out with, wait a minute, you're increasing pesticides and fertilizers,
Speaker 2: which have their own greenhouse consequences, they're going to be
Speaker 2: challenged on every level. Well, the model used didn't use, Well,
Speaker 2: your numbers are wrong, your outcome, the output of that
Speaker 2: model is flawed. And so they're going to throw that
Speaker 2: out and use industries model for showing that this is
Speaker 2: actually a climate. And the other thing they do is.
Speaker 3: They talk about what could be Yes, they do this
Speaker 3: with carbon Like I just was talking to Excellent about
Speaker 3: a carbon capture story, and all the language that they
Speaker 3: use is like we plan to support.
Speaker 1: X number of emissions reductions or like we're aiming to
Speaker 1: achieve blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: Sough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So every single claim you can go through and
Speaker 2: look at the number of jobs that Summit is claiming
Speaker 2: that they're going to have during construction, any of their claims,
Speaker 2: any single claim how much water they're going to use,
Speaker 2: which by the way, they don't know, and that will
Speaker 2: be variable. But any claim that they make it's going
Speaker 2: to be this much CO two, we won't need them,
Speaker 2: and it don't make whatever it is they are lying,
Speaker 2: and it's all these predictions which are no more valid
Speaker 2: than a fortune cookie.
Speaker 3: They have not they're always completely hedged in a way
Speaker 3: that they can't be held accountable for lying or falsifying things.
Speaker 1: But right it's still misleading.
Speaker 2: And the new lawsuit, Oh what state is it? Portant?
Speaker 2: Is it King County in Oregon that is claiming this
Speaker 2: is not an act of God, these extreme heat events
Speaker 2: not an act of God. It's an act of Eccon.
Speaker 2: But the ability to claim God this is an act
Speaker 2: of God for whatever the accident is. So everything is
Speaker 2: a prediction, a plan, a promise, none of which comes true,
Speaker 2: none of which comes true. If you look at any
Speaker 2: of the predictions of any of the carbon capture facilities,
Speaker 2: none of them are accurate. None of them are accurate
Speaker 2: about how much storage is blow ground. You look at
Speaker 2: all the problems that it could fill up much sooner.
Speaker 2: But you've got this vast pipeline, and how would you
Speaker 2: know that it is full if you're not measuring what's
Speaker 2: coming back up. So every single place where they say
Speaker 2: this is the outcome, I just assume they're lying. And
Speaker 2: even if they're not lying, they don't have good evidence
Speaker 2: to back up their claim, and they are never held accountable.
Speaker 2: At what point do you say, we are going to
Speaker 2: pull your permit and we are going to stop giving
Speaker 2: you funding. So the IRA reduced the amount of emissions
Speaker 2: of CO two that they actually had to capture to
Speaker 2: get the credit.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: So the whole thing is rigged to just line the
Speaker 2: pockets and keep the fossil fuel industry going. It doesn't
Speaker 2: matter if they got all the CO two or if
Speaker 2: it stays underground. They got the oil through eor and
Speaker 2: its predictions are correct, you know, I saw one recently
Speaker 2: that said eor was going to extend the life of
Speaker 2: oil by eighty four years. That's a big number, and
Speaker 2: I think that the sad part is that it's not
Speaker 2: clear to us that the architects of the IRA, you know,
Speaker 2: the really good environmentalists, actually understood this.
Speaker 1: I wanted to have you talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the issues with self reporting and verification for forty five
Speaker 1: Q and just how much there is no verifiable climate
Speaker 1: impact happening here. The first thing to know is that
Speaker 1: this is a leaky material. CO two has a way
Speaker 1: of moving through the air, of leaking through pipelines and
Speaker 1: all of that. And because we have no cradle to
Speaker 1: grave tracking, we have no way of actually knowing how
Speaker 1: much is really being collected, and how much is really
Speaker 1: hitting well head, and how much is really staying underground,
Speaker 1: either through sequestration or enhanced oil recovery.
Speaker 2: We have no way of knowing. We have ways of
Speaker 2: tracking hazardous materials. We have hazardous waste manifests, and so
Speaker 2: every time the hazardous material just hands we track it.
Speaker 2: We know who got it last, we know where it
Speaker 2: ends up. We have really good information about volumes for
Speaker 2: the most part. But with CO two there is no
Speaker 2: tracking cradle to grave, and so it's just right for
Speaker 2: both the financial fraud and the climate fraud, and so
Speaker 2: we don't really know.
Speaker 1: Can I also have you talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the safety issue and start moving this stuff around and
Speaker 1: how we're sequestering it when it's actually being stored.
Speaker 2: Well, those are two separate issues. The health effects are
Speaker 2: because CO two is a unique material. It has properties
Speaker 2: for how it travels that it's heavier than ambient air,
Speaker 2: and so it sinks down and can stay together and move.
Speaker 2: So if your CO two pipeline goes through your neighborhood
Speaker 2: and you live in a basement, that CO two is
Speaker 2: as likely to go down into your apartment rather than
Speaker 2: up to the top floors. So it moves in unique ways.
Speaker 2: And it acidifies water. And if you think about how
Speaker 2: much of your body is made out of water, your eyes,
Speaker 2: the mucous membranes in your nose, and your mouth, these
Speaker 2: are all watery, aqueous. And just as it can acidify water,
Speaker 2: it can acidify those parts of our body that it
Speaker 2: comes in contact with. And we know that it's one
Speaker 2: of the reasons the ocean is acidifying is because of
Speaker 2: this unusual property of CO two meeting water forming carbonic acid.
Speaker 2: Another property of CO two is that it is toxic
Speaker 2: in that it has poisonous qualities, and then of course
Speaker 2: it's an asphyxiant. We have very carefully calibrated mechanisms in
Speaker 2: our body to get rid of CO two. We are
Speaker 2: organisms designed to get rid of CO two because it
Speaker 2: does sidify our bodies and because it can deprive us
Speaker 2: of oxygen and suffocate you. It's not a pleasant death.
Speaker 2: We use CO two to euthanize animals and confined animal
Speaker 2: feeding operations. So this is not a material that's conducive
Speaker 2: to life, especially when we concentrate it. When we concentrate
Speaker 2: it and put it through pipelines and compressor stations and
Speaker 2: valves and all of those things, we are concentrating a
Speaker 2: material that moves differently, that is toxic, that's ynysphyxiant, that
Speaker 2: does nasty things to water with water when it meets water.
Speaker 2: So for all those reasons, it has health impacts that
Speaker 2: are very different than oil and gas. So these are
Speaker 2: not your grandmother's pipelines. They could be lethal. We talk
Speaker 2: about the kill zone or a fatality zone. Around a
Speaker 2: CO two pipeline. We don't talk about that with oil
Speaker 2: and gas pipelines. So oil leaks out and it has
Speaker 2: a limited range where it's going to flow. I might
Speaker 2: be a fairly big area, but we don't start talking
Speaker 2: about a fatality zone or a kill zone with an
Speaker 2: oil pipeline. And so these are very unusual. And because
Speaker 2: of the carbonic acid in a pipeline, if it meets water,
Speaker 2: CO two meets water, it's highly corrosive. So pipelines that
Speaker 2: have CO two with impurities are more likely to leak
Speaker 2: or rupture or have some other problem associated with them.
Speaker 2: So all around, these are uniquely dangerous and underregulated. So
Speaker 2: let's just say we knew that we could have all
Speaker 2: the right metals, all the right ways to ship this
Speaker 2: material somewhere and do it with one hundred percent safety. Well,
Speaker 2: we know that we can't do that, and we don't
Speaker 2: even have regulations promulgated by THEIMSA and finalized for CO
Speaker 2: two pipelines. Following an accident in Starsha, Mississippi, where there
Speaker 2: was an explosion of CO two and which caused a
Speaker 2: lot of health problems in the population that was within
Speaker 2: a farther away than you might think would be it
Speaker 2: would experience a problem, and so the FISA, the Pipeline
Speaker 2: and Hazardous Material Safety Administration, decided to look at why
Speaker 2: that accident happened and to promulgate a new rule that
Speaker 2: would actually regulate pipeline construction and CO two pipeline companies.
Speaker 2: That rule is not final and we don't know when
Speaker 2: it will be final It's been held up at omb
Speaker 2: for some time. And yet a pipeline company in Iowa
Speaker 2: called the Summit Carbon Solutions Pipeline has solicited permits in
Speaker 2: multiple states and just been given a permit by the
Speaker 2: Iowa Utilities Commission, And they gave permission even knowing that
Speaker 2: the CO two pipeline rule had not been finalized and
Speaker 2: that the company is not bound by it. Whatever the
Speaker 2: rule will be, it's not going to be applied retroactively.
Speaker 2: Now there's some things that will apply retroactively if there
Speaker 2: are new emergency management plans or things like that, but
Speaker 2: any construction requirements for materials or other things will not
Speaker 2: be applied retroactively to Summit. So what we have is
Speaker 2: a very hazardous material is underregulated. It's not well accounted
Speaker 2: for when we move it through the system. And then
Speaker 2: on top of that, we are not just creating a
Speaker 2: straight through pipeline. We are creating a vast network of
Speaker 2: pipelines of multiple sizes and therefore all these connections. So
Speaker 2: we're going to be connecting pipelines. They're fairly small in
Speaker 2: diameter two toess so it can range from four inches
Speaker 2: to twenty four inches. But all of those connections, all
Speaker 2: of those transitions between the collection of CO to the
Speaker 2: compression of it, the putting it into the pipeline, then
Speaker 2: moving it to a bigger pipeline, the moving it to
Speaker 2: a smaller pipeline, whatever it might be. Well, I think
Speaker 2: they're all going to go to a bigger pipeline as
Speaker 2: it's going to have feeder pipelines into the main trunkline
Speaker 2: of the pipeline. But every time you add another feeder line,
Speaker 2: every time you add one that's the different dimension and
Speaker 2: connect it to a larger pipeline and have all these
Speaker 2: pump stations and this vast spider web of pipelines, you
Speaker 2: add to the risk. So if you have a straight
Speaker 2: shot pipeline that's uniform in size, that has the right
Speaker 2: number of arrestors to stop these ductal these fractures that
Speaker 2: can just unzip a pipeline. Given the nature of CO two,
Speaker 2: you know we're in trouble. So I advocate preventing harm
Speaker 2: that may happen if it's a preventable harm. So there's
Speaker 2: no reason that we should be paying a polluter for
Speaker 2: a known pollutant, a known unusual hazard. And then you know,
Speaker 2: allowing them to claim land through eminent domain, seizing private land,
Speaker 2: running it through communities with all of this complexity, and
Speaker 2: most of these companies are new, they don't have experience
Speaker 2: managing a pipeline, and all of the things that they say,
Speaker 2: the assurances they give, we will have multiple generators, we
Speaker 2: can stop this in seconds. We can do that's we
Speaker 2: know from experience. That's not how real life operates. And
Speaker 2: so this vast network of underregulated pipelines of new companies,
Speaker 2: the complexity of this, the nature of the material all
Speaker 2: mean that we are building in hazards that are going
Speaker 2: to behave unpredictably, and then we are putting it somewhere
Speaker 2: underground in inadequately characterized geologic formations. But we know what
Speaker 2: we're looking for. We know what we want in an
Speaker 2: underground a vault where it's never going to escape. But
Speaker 2: most of the places that we are looking at putting
Speaker 2: the material already have the cap rock which would be
Speaker 2: required to hold it in place and keep it from
Speaker 2: contaminating drinking water and all the other things that it
Speaker 2: can do. But we've already punctured those caprocs in these
Speaker 2: places with existing oil and gas wells. We don't even
Speaker 2: know where all of them are. We have abandoned wells
Speaker 2: littering the landscape. And we think we're going to put
Speaker 2: CO two down in the underground, and then they're going
Speaker 2: to you know, all the ways that CO two can
Speaker 2: move up the well, leaky casing in a well. When
Speaker 2: it's being shot down into the wall, it's endless. And
Speaker 2: so all of their assurances about we've got this, don't worry,
Speaker 2: go go shopping at Walmart our demeaning for people who
Speaker 2: actually have studied this and know anything about the hazards
Speaker 2: of CO two both as a climate threat, but then
Speaker 2: when we concentrate it and shove it through pipelines as
Speaker 2: a super critical liquid, we are asking for trouble. This
Speaker 2: is sort of like giving a sixteen year old with
Speaker 2: a known drug habit the keys to the Ferrari and
Speaker 2: assuming they're going to stop, they're going to drive thirty
Speaker 2: miles an hour and stop at every stop sign and
Speaker 2: be home by eight pm.
Speaker 1: Is it still true that PIMSA has not finalized its
Speaker 1: its rules for CO two pipelines.
Speaker 2: One of the things that's worth looking at is FIMSA overall.
Speaker 2: So FIMSA manages hazardous materials, it's in their name. In
Speaker 2: the accident in East Palestine, that's under fims's jurisdiction. So
Speaker 2: the same entity that is supposed to be regulating those
Speaker 2: trains with hazard's materials is also regulating pipelines with hazardous
Speaker 2: materials like CO two. So FIMSA itself is an interesting
Speaker 2: agency and what authority it has or does not have.
Speaker 2: It is one of the agencies that is most wholly
Speaker 2: captured by industry. Their regulations are often directly taken from industry,
Speaker 2: just lifted from industry recommendations and incorporated by reference. It
Speaker 2: is a wholly captured entity. And yet they recognized the
Speaker 2: CO two pipelines were unusually dangerous and underregulated, so they
Speaker 2: drafted a regulation which we've not seen. It's currently at
Speaker 2: omb and FIMSA has had its authority sorely limited by
Speaker 2: companies that make it do two cost benefit analyzes. So
Speaker 2: just getting a rule through the cost benefit analysis that
Speaker 2: they have to do means that they are going to
Speaker 2: air on the side of the industry. They are not
Speaker 2: going to err on the side of the public. It's
Speaker 2: just the way they're set up. It's what Congress, the
Speaker 2: authority Congress has not given them, and the requirements they
Speaker 2: put in place to make a rule as weak as possible.
Speaker 2: You know, it's supposed to benefit the economy. It's not
Speaker 2: supposed to protect public health and safety as far as
Speaker 2: we can tell. And that rule has now gone to
Speaker 2: OMB and it's under Ohirah, the agency that reviews these rules,
Speaker 2: and we thought it was going to come out somewhere
Speaker 2: around March, and it has not been released. You can
Speaker 2: go on their website and they have public meetings that
Speaker 2: have been scheduled, meetings with members of the public. I
Speaker 2: should be clear, not public meetings, but meetings with members
Speaker 2: of the public, maybe industry. It might be the landowner
Speaker 2: in Iowa. I don't know. I think they listed, but
Speaker 2: I haven't gone and looked in the last week. And
Speaker 2: the delay in this means that if they don't come
Speaker 2: out with that rule soon the new administration, if we
Speaker 2: have a change in administrations, could review that rule and
Speaker 2: throw it out, start over again or not. So we
Speaker 2: are in a logjam with that rule, and there's something
Speaker 2: that are contingent on that rule passing. California has a
Speaker 2: moratorium in part on CO two pipelines, not intrust sit sites,
Speaker 2: but interstates sites and inter sites between sites and off
Speaker 2: an industry's property. There's a moratorium on COO two pipelines
Speaker 2: that was passed by the California legislature that prohibits any
Speaker 2: of these pipelines, specifically the ones that go off site
Speaker 2: until FILMS finalizes its rule. And Illinois has a similar
Speaker 2: rule or two years. So Illinois just passed legislation that
Speaker 2: also does that. And there are numerous jurisdictions in elsewhere
Speaker 2: that are smaller, not state but county and jurisdictions and
Speaker 2: things like that that have also put in place a
Speaker 2: moratorium until they come out with a rule. So a
Speaker 2: lot hinges on this. The question came before the Iowa
Speaker 2: Utilities Commission about whether they should wait for the rule,
Speaker 2: and they decided not to, and they does not put
Speaker 2: in place of moratorium on their permit. So that's a
Speaker 2: quick run through on safety. There's been a lot of
Speaker 2: private interest money going into research focused on carbon capture
Speaker 2: and that has pushed things in this direction as well.
Speaker 2: So all the ways that corporations can get the public
Speaker 2: to fund them, and the carbon capture and storage is
Speaker 2: a good case study for that. So if you start
Speaker 2: with the tax credit on the federal level that carbon
Speaker 2: capture and storage is going to garner going forward. That's
Speaker 2: a huge amount of money. Huge and then you look
Speaker 2: at all of the other ways that this fits together.
Speaker 2: There's a vast economic structure that supports industry and business financially,
Speaker 2: and then on top of that, there's a huge economic
Speaker 2: infrastructure that's built on top of the forty five Q
Speaker 2: tax credits. So everything from the carbon credits that you
Speaker 2: can buy and sell, there's futures, markets, derivatives, all of
Speaker 2: these things that are being predicated on the forty five
Speaker 2: Q tax credit. And then there's all the ways that
Speaker 2: the state laws are flying buttresses for things like federal
Speaker 2: tax credits. So some states actually have mirror laws so
Speaker 2: that if they get a federal tax credit, that automatically
Speaker 2: gives them a state credit on their state taxes. So
Speaker 2: I think there are twenty some odd states that have
Speaker 2: that kind of parallel tax structures. So if the federal
Speaker 2: government gives Exxon a tax credit, then the state counts
Speaker 2: that off of their income that they have to report
Speaker 2: for their state taxes. And then there are things like
Speaker 2: state tax credits in states like Iowa that give companies research.
Speaker 2: If they do research into various products or whatever else,
Speaker 2: they get a tax credit for that research. And yet
Speaker 2: we are starving our public institutions, you know, our Iowa
Speaker 2: State University from money. And in addition, we have federal
Speaker 2: laws that are reflected in those state institutions that have
Speaker 2: set into place a way of transferring technology through these
Speaker 2: university publicly funded and industry partnerships. And that's under a
Speaker 2: whole set of laws that originated with something called the
Speaker 2: Bidole Technology Transfer Act, where we wanted to get technologies
Speaker 2: into public hands. The best way to do with that
Speaker 2: was through private corporations. And that's Following World War Two,
Speaker 2: we put in place that entire funding structure for R
Speaker 2: and D.
Speaker 3: So there's so little.
Speaker 2: Science now that is government and publicly funded that is
Speaker 2: simply science in the public interest. Oh, this is just parenthetical,
Speaker 2: believe but Jane Lupchenko, who is president of Triple As,
Speaker 2: said we needed a new social contract for science, and
Speaker 2: the reason was that we were now facing a planet
Speaker 2: that was in dire straits and we were still operating
Speaker 2: under the old contract, which is we need more widgets
Speaker 2: for the balance of trade, and so we're not doing
Speaker 2: basic science. We're not looking at preventive health measures, or
Speaker 2: you know, we're developing viagra and glaucoma drugs. We're developing
Speaker 2: pharmaceuticals that make companies rich for a very long time.
Speaker 2: And we are funding carbon capture and storage through enormous
Speaker 2: amounts of money through Department of Energy with loans and grants.
Speaker 2: The Transfer Act, which has both construction, well get Maggie
Speaker 2: to talk about it, but that they can help fund
Speaker 2: construction as well as then fund the credits under different
Speaker 2: tax credit structures and they can take their choice or
Speaker 2: double dip. And there's been a lot of research now
Speaker 2: on our side trying to look at can they double
Speaker 2: dip on these and can they both get an ethanol
Speaker 2: tax credit and a forty five Q tax credit. Paul's
Speaker 2: written and said no. But if you look at the
Speaker 2: big corporate lawyers who defend these guys and do their
Speaker 2: tax returns. They are looking for every avenue possible to
Speaker 2: get more public money flowing into the likes of Chevron
Speaker 2: and Exxon and Summit. So the amount of money that
Speaker 2: is coming in so many different directions and is not
Speaker 2: fully accounted in a public ledger. For what this has
Speaker 2: cost us is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: The last thing I wanted to ask you about is
Speaker 1: that the one place that litigation might be possible is
Speaker 1: around the pipelines.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this the pipelines are going to be litigated.
Speaker 2: We all know that. Everybody's saying it. It's and it'll
Speaker 2: be litigated under a couple of places. But first and
Speaker 2: foremost is eminent domain. Why should private land be taken
Speaker 2: from a private landowner and given to another private owner.
Speaker 2: So that's going to get litigated, and then it will
Speaker 2: probably be litigated under the Army Corps of Engineer's Permit
Speaker 2: fifty eight. So you know, the way we won for
Speaker 2: the most part Dakota access with the tribes was the
Speaker 2: Army Corps of Engineers permits, the couple of permits they
Speaker 2: had to give for the Missouri River with Dakota access,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure there will be some litigation with nationwide
Speaker 2: Permit fifty eight, but that tends not to stop stuff.
Speaker 2: So one of the tactics of these pipeline companies is
Speaker 2: to rush stuff, to start construction before they've got all
Speaker 2: the permits in now. Iowa has said you cannot start
Speaker 2: construction until you've got North Dakota's permit for the poor
Speaker 2: space and for the pipeline, and South Dakota's pipeline permit,
Speaker 2: but the rest of them, they would rush. So even
Speaker 2: if they don't have all of the other permits that
Speaker 2: they need, and there's quite a few, including the Army
Speaker 2: Corps engineers and others, and the Army Corps usually aggregates
Speaker 2: a bunch of other agency permits US Fish and Wildlife
Speaker 2: and all of those, so they will start construction. And
Speaker 2: then the logic is, you can't stop us now, we've
Speaker 2: invested so much money. They'll say, when the rule comes out, well,
Speaker 2: you can't change the rules of the game now, because
Speaker 2: we've already we are already got at this permit, we've
Speaker 2: already you know, whatever they've all already done. You can't
Speaker 2: change anything now, and you can't hold them accountable, and
Speaker 2: you can't stop construction because they've started, and we saw it.
Speaker 2: Really they started without the Army Corps of Engineer's permit
Speaker 2: in Iowa and without a bunch of other permits, and
Speaker 2: then it was well, we can't waste that money. Who's
Speaker 2: going to stop them? You know? And now the DA
Speaker 2: Code access is actually up and running. The judge Boasberg
Speaker 2: in Washington said this is not a legal permit, but
Speaker 2: they're not making him tear it out. So you know,
Speaker 2: the question is at what point does litigation actually stop
Speaker 2: something or when does it just make a lot of
Speaker 2: nonprofit lawyers crazy and a lot of industry lawyers rich.
Speaker 2: So the litigation will emerge over time and the pipelines
Speaker 2: are the best bet and will it stop it? I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: That's it for this time. We'll be back soon with
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