A group of 150 grassroots nonprofits from across the country is calling on President Biden to halt the construction of new pipelines transporting carbon dioxide.

Getting up to speed: Earlier this week, congressional leaders struck a deal to raise the national debt ceiling — keeping the government open — in exchange for sweeping reforms to the national permitting process, as The Hill reported. 

In plain language: These changes seek to make it easier for corporations to permit — and harder for activist groups to fight —  new infrastructure. 
 
Activist groups argue that sweeping new federal environmental rules make that a clear and pressing issue.  

New rules: Earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) instituted regulations requiring all coal plants and some gas plants to capture and store their carbon emissions, The Hill reported.

Public deceit: “Pipelines to transport CO2 are the key component of the carbon capture scam,” Jim Walsh, policy director of the group Food & Water Watch, said in a statement.

Fossil fuel companies have used “lies and misinformation to convince the public and policy makers that these dangerous and expensive projects are something other than a money maker for dirty energy producers,” Walsh added. 

Putting the pieces together: The new EPA rule implies a sweeping buildout in pipelines to move carbon dioxide from places that produce it — as a byproduct in making chemicals or electricity — to places with the right geography to store it. 

• For those in between, that means a new web of pipelines moving carbon dioxide. 
  
  
• The common gas is heavier-than-air gas — which means in case of a spill, it rolls along at ground level.  
  
  
• A leak from a pipeline or storage tank “could spread undetected for miles, suffocating everything in its path,” Food & Water Watch stated.

Near miss: The textbook version of such a leak happened in 2020 in Satartia, Miss., where a broken pipeline that released asphyxiating fumes sent 45 to the hospital, though no one was killed, according to The Des Moines Register. 

Removing a human obstacle: Without permitting reform, this buildout will be difficult to accomplish, at least in the critical crossroads of the Midwest. 

• That’s the region where the Keystone XL was killed by farmers movements. 
  
  
• The Dakota Access Pipeline and Enbridge Line 3 faced months of expensive, reputation-damaging protests there. 

As it happens: In that area, well-organized networks of farmers and environmentalists are now mobilizing against two large pipeline networks proposed to transfer carbon dioxide from Iowa biodiesel plants to be used to help produce oil in North Dakota. 

But permitting reform would allow corporations wide latitude to seize land for pipelines whether landowners want them to or not.  

Too much, too fast: On Tuesday, the coalition of groups argued that this proposed buildout is happening too far in advance of potential safety regulations.  

• The federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is working on new rules — inspired by the Mississippi leak — to regulate carbon dioxide pipelines.
  
  
• But they aren’t expected for more than a year.  

Meanwhile, the grassroots group wrote in a letter, the federal government is already receiving permit requests for new carbon dioxide pipelines.  

“The dangers will be compounded if [the government] permits these pipelines before PHMSA has completed its rule,” they wrote.

Second front: The Bold Alliance, a group that grew out of the resistance to the Keystone XL, has also called on Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg — who oversees PHMSA — to not approve any carbon dioxide pipelines before the agency makes safety rules.