Pipelines

Billions of federal tax dollars will soon be pouring into Louisiana to fight climate change, yet the projects they’re supporting may actually boost fossil fuels – the very products warming the planet. At issue are plans to build dozens of federally subsidized projects to capture and bury carbon dioxide from industries. On the surface, these projects seem beneficial. Keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere prevents the greenhouse gas from fueling climate change. In practice, however, this may lead to a net increase in fossil fuel production and more emissions. That’s because many of these carbon capture projects will be handling emissions from facilities that rely on oil and natural gas – in fact, many of the projects are tied to major oil and gas companies through subsidiaries. Under new federal rules, the projects can receive generous tax subsidies. The more carbon dioxide the factories produce and capture, the more federal money the projects can r...

Should states and Indigenous nations be able to influence energy projects they view as harmful or contrary to their laws and values? This question lies at the center of a heated debate over Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 pipeline, which carries oil and natural gas across Wisconsin and Michigan. Courts, regulatory agencies and political leaders are deciding whether Enbridge should be allowed to keep its pipeline in place for another 99 years, with upgrades. The state of Michigan and the Bad River Tribe in Wisconsin want to close the pipeline down immediately. My expertise is in Great Lakes water and energy policy, environmental protection and sustainability leadership. I have analyzed and taught these issues as a sustainability scholar, and I have worked on them as the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes regional executive director from 2015 until early 2023. In my view, the future of Line 5 has become a defining issue for the future of the Great Lakes region. It...

The National Environmental Policy Act, enacted in 1970, is widely viewed as a keystone U.S. environmental law. For any major federal action that affects the environment, such as building an interstate highway or licensing a nuclear power plant, NEPA requires relevant agencies to analyze environmental impacts, consider reasonable alternatives and accept public input. It also allows citizens to sue if they believe government has not complied. Critics argue that NEPA reviews delay projects and drive up costs. In May 2023 negotiations over raising the federal debt ceiling, President Joe Biden agreed to certain changes to NEPA reviews, which both the White House and congressional Republicans said would streamline permitting for infrastructure projects. Legal scholars J.B. Ruhl and James Salzman explain these changes and what they mean for protecting the environment and expanding clean energy production. What kinds of projects typically require NEPA reviews? The statutory text of NE...

Across the U.S., children and adults are increasingly exposed to harmful chemicals from a source few people are even aware of. It begins on a street outside a home or school, where a worker in a manhole is repairing a sewer pipe. The contractor inserts a resin-soaked sleeve into the buried pipe, then heats it, transforming the resin into a hard plastic pipe. This is one of the cheapest, most common pipe repair methods, but it comes with a serious risk: Heating the resin generates harmful fumes that can travel through the sewer lines and into surrounding buildings, sometimes several blocks away. These chemicals have made hundreds of people ill, forced building evacuations and even led to hospitalizations. Playgrounds, day care centers and schools in several states have been affected, including in Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. With this sewer pipe repair method, the chemical wast...

Russia’s effort to conscript 300,000 reservists to counter Ukraine’s military advances in Kharkiv has drawn a lot of attention from military and political analysts. But there’s also a potential energy angle. Energy conflicts between Russia and Europe are escalating and likely could worsen as winter approaches. One might assume that energy workers, who provide fuel and export revenue that Russia desperately needs, are too valuable to the war effort to be conscripted. So far, banking and information technology workers have received an official nod to stay in their jobs. The situation for oil and gas workers is murkier, including swirling bits of Russian media disinformation about whether the sector will or won’t be targeted for mobilization. Either way, I expect Russia’s oil and gas operations to be destabilized by the next phase of the war. The explosions in September 2022 that damaged the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines from Russia to Europe, an...