Wyo. to continue work on carbon storage bills

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CHEYENNE ��” The Wyoming Legislature plans to continue work to regulate the underground storage of carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants and other sources.

The Legislature early this year passed some of the nation’s first bills regulating carbon capture and underground storage. State officials say commercial storage projects are likely still years away.

The Joint Judiciary Interim Committee has sponsored three new carbon bills for the legislative session that begins next month.

One bill would specify that those who inject carbon dioxide emissions would remain responsible for the gas. Another would prohibit injecting carbon dioxide in areas with recoverable hydrocarbon deposits without permission of the owner of the deposits. The third would specify that the mineral portion of real estate takes legal precedence over the carbon storage portion.

State officials say carbon capture and storage projects will be vital to Wyoming’s economy, which depends heavily on coal production to supply power plants in the state and elsewhere.

Burning coal produces carbon dioxide, which scientists say contributes to global warming. Carbon capture projects would involve injecting the gas into the ground.

The Legislature early this year passed a bill ultimately signed into law by Gov. Dave Freudenthal that established that the owners of the surface of a piece of property also own the underground storage rights. Another bill established that the state’s Department of Environmental Quality will oversee carbon storage projects.

Rob Hurless, energy adviser to Freudenthal, said Monday that the bills coming up in next month’s legislative session are an extension of Wyoming’s existing carbon capture laws.

“My boss is pretty serious about understanding this and setting up the predicate, so that as sequestration develops, that the state will be in a position to act on those opportunities,” Hurless said. “And he wants to do that with some thoughtful consideration of it, and that’s why I think it makes sense to keep working on these bills.”

Hurless said it will probably take several years for commercial sequestration projects to open in Wyoming, but said the pace of development could depend on possible federal climate change legislation.

Hurless said the largest unresolved issue for carbon capture projects is determining which entity will hold the long-term liability for the gas once it’s pumped underground. He said there’s some suggestion that the federal government should assume long-term liability for carbon storage, but said that hasn’t yet been addressed in federal law.

“Until we’ve solve the long-term liability issue, I think it’s going to be slow progress” in developing commercial carbon storage projects in the state, Hurless said. The U.S. Department of Energy is developing carbon storage demonstration projects in Wyoming and elsewhere.

The DOE announced last month that it has awarded nearly $67 million for a test project to store more than 2 million tons of carbon dioxide underground in western Wyoming. The Big Sky Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership is led by Montana State University.

Rep. Tom Lubnau, R-Gillette, said Monday that the bills sponsored by the Joint Judiciary Interim Committee for the coming session would make it clear that the person or entity that injected carbon into the ground would remain responsible for it.

Lubnau, a lawyer, has been a prime architect of Wyoming’s carbon storage laws. He said private industry needs to be able to assess precisely the liability of carbon storage projects before they will be commercially viable.

“To do one of these projects, they say that if they know who the liability belongs to, then they can assess it and figure our what the financial assurances are that they need,” Lubnau said. “It’s the uncertainty that kills the market.”

Lubnau said regulation of carbon in the state is a work in progress and said he expects that the state will have to continue passing laws to deal with the issue for years to come. However, he said he believes that when combined with the laws the state already has on the books, the pending bills would provide “a firm foundation for serious development of carbon sequestration development in Wyoming.”