Food and Water Watch Archives

Food and Water Watch

May 31, 2023

Citing safety concerns, groups seek moratorium on new CO2 pipelines

By Dana Drugmand

Environmental and public health advocates are calling on President Joe Biden to issue a moratorium on new carbon dioxide pipelines, citing “serious safety concerns” and significant gaps in current federal safety regulations.

The effort comes as the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) holds a public meeting in Iowa to gather stakeholder input as it prepares to update its safety regulations governing CO2 transport by pipeline.

“A moratorium on dangerous and underregulated carbon dioxide pipelines is essential to protect communities and the environment,” Maggie Coulter, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said in a statement.

In a letter to President Biden released on Tuesday, more than 150 organizations urged the president to issue an executive order halting federal permits for CO2 pipelines while insisting that states hold off on granting state permits for these pipelines until PHMSA completes its updated regulations.

Last year PHMSA announced it would be initiating a new rulemaking on CO2 pipeline safety in response to a pipeline rupture in Satartia, Mississippi in February 2020 that released a large plume of highly pressurized CO2, sending nearly 50 people to the hospital and causing around 300 people to be evacuated. The letter to President Biden references the disaster, warning “our communities face the risk of much larger and more devastating ruptures” in the absence of updated federal regulations.

The president’s negotiated deal with congressional Republicans to raise the debt ceiling could also weaken federal environmental reviews and reduce public input on energy-related infrastructure and other development projects including CO2 pipelines, environmental advocacy groups say.

May 16, 2023

US efforts to turn farm animal poop into biofuel spark scrutiny

By Shannon Kelleher

Industrial-sized livestock operations have long been known for contaminating the environment and mistreating animals. Now, amid growing government incentives to turn the manure generated at these operations into climate-friendly biofuels, there are mounting concerns that the efforts could make industrial farming bigger and more dangerous.

Critics say government support for the production of biogas through the use of what are known as manure digesters comes with an array of well-documented risks. The digesters break down manure and capture methane gas, which can be used as fuel, but they come with a history of fires, explosions, hydrogen sulfide poisoning, methane leaks, and even drowning.

Methane digesters “exacerbate the dangers that are already endemic to industrial animal farming… where animals are housed in the same location as malfunctioning equipment, flammable liquids, and dangerous manure management practices,” said Alicia Prygoski, strategic legislative affairs manager at the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) animal advocacy group.

“Encouraging mass amounts of manure production, to facilitate the mass capture of the flammable gas that results from its decomposition, is what creates the increase in risks for explosions,” said Prygoski. “All you need is a spark.”

The Biden Administration’s much-touted Inflation Reduction Act includes funding and tax credits incentivizing farmers to install more of these digesters, and the new Farm Bill could include funds incentivizing the practice.

The ALDF and more than 100 other organizations sent a letter in December to US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack calling on the agency to stop any allocation of additional funding from the IRA for the use or expansion of methane digesters or “production of factory farm gas.”

The groups cited a “ballooning factory farm gas industry,” and warned, among other issues, that digesters can “leak methane and manure and can even explode.”