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![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Image-9.jpeg\" "\\"Summit")
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An ethanol plant in Chancellor on Sept. 6, 2024. South Dakota Searchlight photo by Joshua Haiar.<\/p>\n
For four years, battles over private property rights have gridlocked state legislatures across the Midwest and stalled plans for a pipeline to transport liquified carbon dioxide from ethanol plants in the region.<\/p>\n
In the background of this eminent domain standoff, Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions, the company behind the pipeline, has quietly shifted its focus from carbon sequestration to fossil fuel extraction.<\/p>\n
Summit now says its pipeline will be used to drive domestic oil and gas production in a process known as enhanced oil recovery, which injects CO2 gas into wells<\/a>. The gas mixes with oil in the rock pores to produce a thinner, easier-to-pump fluid, potentially doubling the amount of oil that can be extracted from a reservoir.<\/p>\n Just a few years ago, Summit\u2019s website<\/a> stated that the project wouldn\u2019t be used for EOR. Instead, it advertised the pipeline as a way to cut emissions through underground sequestration. Soon after, Summit heralded it as a critical step in developing lower-carbon sustainable aviation fuel.<\/p>\n But as the company struggles to advance its pipeline out of a permitting quagmire and faces legal battles over property rights in Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota, it finds itself in a starkly different energy market and political landscape.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s messaging now parallels President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cdrill, baby, drill\u201d policies, which seek to bolster American fossil fuel production while reversing progress on renewable energy and loosening restrictions on the greenhouse gas pollution damaging the climate.<\/p>\n MORE:\u00a0Summit permit for CO2 storage voided as second judge finds North Dakota law unconstitutional<\/a><\/p>\n Opponents of the pipeline have criticized Summit\u2019s shift, arguing that the company will say whatever it takes to get the project over the finish line.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just whatever\u2019s convenient for them in the moment,\u201d said Jess Mazour, the conservation coordinator for the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club.<\/p>\n In late 2024, the organization filed a lawsuit challenging the Iowa Utilities Commission\u2019s approval of Summit\u2019s permit.<\/p>\n Summit did not respond to repeated email and phone requests for comment on the company\u2019s pivot.<\/p>\n The climate pitch<\/p>\n Summit Carbon Solutions is a subsidiary of the Iowa-based private equity firm Summit Agricultural Group<\/a>, which owns nearly 14,000 acres of farmland in the state. Both companies are founded and chaired by Iowa\u2019s Bruce Rastetter, an agribusiness entrepreneur known for his frequent donations to state and federal Republican candidates and campaigns.<\/p>\n A screenshot from the Summit Carbon Solutions website in March 2026.<\/p>\n When Summit first filed a petition to construct its \u201cMidwest Carbon Express\u201d pipeline with the Iowa Utilities Commission, it was 2021, the first year of the climate-focused Biden administration. The company proposed transporting liquified CO2 from ethanol plants in the state to be stored underground in North Dakota.<\/p>\n At the time, the company\u2019s argument for the pipeline was two-pronged: Carbon capture technology would cut greenhouse gas emissions and open new, lower-carbon fuel markets for corn and ethanol, boosting a struggling Midwest farm economy.<\/p>\n Using the internet archive, a nonprofit digital library, Inside Climate News analyzed how Summit\u2019s language on the project website evolved over time.<\/p>\n MORE:\u00a0Gevo moves priority from South Dakota to North Dakota amid Summit pipeline delays<\/a><\/p>\n In 2021, the site urgently called<\/a> for net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050 and told visitors that \u201ca dramatic increase in carbon capture and storage\u201d would be critical to achieving net-zero and staying within 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming, a goal set in the Paris Agreement.<\/p>\n Through 2023, Summit continued to emphasize<\/a> carbon neutrality, estimating that the project would prevent the release of 12 million metric tons of CO2 to the atmosphere every year.<\/p>\n For years, Summit advertised<\/a> that the pipeline would have an annual emissions-reduction impact equivalent to taking 2.6 million vehicles off the road. In fact, the project arose largely out of a need to stay competitive in a changing automotive industry.<\/p>\n Rising U.S. demand for electric vehicles after 2018 put the squeeze on an already plateauing ethanol industry, the final destination for some 35 percent of all U.S. corn grown in 2025, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.<\/p>\n From the beginning of the pipeline project, Summit argued that lowering ethanol\u2019s carbon index was essential to keeping the fuel competitive in places with renewable fuel standards and protecting corn demand for farmers already struggling to make a profit. For a while, Summit wanted to compete in the sustainable aviation fuel market, which produces lower-emission jet fuel from low-carbon ethanol.<\/p>\n In 2023, Summit Agricultural Group launched another subsidiary, Summit Next Gen, and announced plans to develop the world\u2019s largest ethanol-to-sustainable aviation fuel plant in Texas\u2019 Port Houston. The company purchased a 60-acre site for the plant in September 2024 but have announced no updates about the project since then.<\/p>\n Lucrative business<\/p>\n While Summit advertised its pipeline as a way for corn growers to tap the pocketbooks of increasingly climate-conscious consumers and transportation sectors, the approach also made sense for the company\u2019s bottom line.<\/p>\n The federal government has long offered generous tax credits<\/a> for carbon capture and storage technology in an effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions and jumpstart development of the expensive and relatively unproven infrastructure.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Congress significantly expanded the tax credit for carbon sequestration in 2018<\/a> and again in 2022<\/a>, offering up to $85 per metric ton of CO2 captured and permanently stored. Carbon captured for use in enhanced oil recovery also qualified for tax credits\u2014though slightly smaller ones, up to $65 per metric ton.<\/p>\n MORE:\u00a0Opposition to Summit pipeline fueled by \u2018horseshoe politics\u2019 on left and right, panelists say<\/a><\/p>\n For years, Summit was adamant that it would not pursue those smaller tax incentives. A \u201cGet The Facts\u201d page<\/a> on Summit\u2019s website told visitors from late 2022 through mid-2024 that the \u201cSummit Carbon Solutions project will not be used for enhanced oil recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, at that time, the company emphasized the pipeline\u2019s importance in reducing carbon emissions and limiting global warming.<\/p>\n Summit\u2019s public-facing climate pitch was strategic, said Brian Jorde, a lawyer representing Midwest landowners in legal challenges to Summit\u2019s permit applications. \u201cThey leaned into sequestration,\u201d he said. \u201cBut they only designed that business model because that was the most lucrative at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, after the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act beefed-up tax incentives for carbon capture, Summit signed deals to add 25 ethanol facilities to its proposed pipeline, bringing the total metric tons of CO2 to be transported each year to 16 million. All that CO2 under contract meant that Summit stood to recover<\/a> as much as $1.5 billion in potential tax credits each year.<\/p>\n Abandoning decarbonization<\/p>\n Early in Trump\u2019s second term, however, the carbon conversation took a turn.<\/p>\n In a barrage of attacks on existing environmental and climate policy, Trump gutted incentives for renewable energy<\/a> projects, invested in carbon-intensive energy<\/a> sources like coal and oil, opened swaths of public land<\/a> to mining and drilling, and reversed a key federal finding<\/a> that linked greenhouse gas emissions to human health.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s sweeping One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 also increased tax incentives for CO2 emissions captured and used in enhanced oil recovery. Now, whether a project captures carbon for permanent storage or to drive fossil fuel production, it receives the same credits.<\/p>\n In a complete departure from plans made just a few years ago, Summit has been quick to adapt to the new political realities. Early this year, the company scrubbed the phrases \u201cclimate change\u201d and \u201cglobal warming\u201d from its website.<\/p>\n Instead, a new page<\/a> announces Summit\u2019s plans to become \u201cthe critical CO2 supply artery for America\u2019s most prolific oil and gas basins,\u201d the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming, the Bakken Formation spanning parts of North Dakota and Montana and the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico.<\/p>\n These regions will depend on CO2 to sustain oil and gas production in the future, Summit wrote, and the pipeline will support \u201cAmerica\u2019s long-term goal of energy dominance.\u201d<\/p>\n For several years, Kathy Stockdale has driven over an hour from her home in Iowa Falls to the state Capitol every week to demand that lawmakers ban the use of eminent domain for carbon pipelines statewide. She bakes cookies for the lawmakers; they\u2019re more likely to interact with the anti-pipeline advocates that way, she says.<\/p>\n In mid-January, Stockdale spoke with Rastetter, Summit\u2019s CEO, who was visiting the Capitol with Jake Ketzner, a lobbyist for the company. Rastetter told Stockdale, who recorded the conversation, that Summit planned to use the carbon pipeline for both direct storage and enhanced oil recovery.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere are you planning on using it for enhanced oil recovery?\u201d Stockdale asked during the conversation.<\/p>\n MORE:\u00a0Pipeline opponents call for Iowa regulators to reject Summit\u2019s proposed permit changes<\/a><\/p>\n Both Rastetter and Ketzner responded, \u201cWyoming.\u201d<\/p>\n Summit did not respond to questions from Inside Climate News about that conversation.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s embrace of enhanced oil recovery is likely an economic decision made in response to Trump\u2019s modification of federal tax credits, said Matt Fry, director of the Center for Energy Regulation and Policy Analysis at the University of Wyoming and former policy and technical director at the Great Plains Institute, where he supported carbon capture, utilization and storage projects in the region.<\/p>\n Though Summit emphasized permanent carbon storage in the project\u2019s early years, EOR was never off the table for its executives, Fry said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019ve ever listened to them talk at conferences, or read some of their old interviews, they never said that they were opposed to it. They always said that it was an option and the market would kind of dictate things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The tax credits that offer equal incentives for enhanced oil recovery and permanent storage projects have altered the market, said Fry. \u201cI think the new \u2018energy dominance\u2019 policy, if you will, probably plays a little bit into [Summit\u2019s] new motivation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Fry doesn\u2019t see Summit backing away from enhanced oil recovery now. Oil and gas are critical to making a dizzying array of everyday and specialty products, not just fuel for the transportation sector. He doesn\u2019t see the drilling industry going away.<\/p>\n And if fossil fuel production is to continue, demand for CO2-enhanced oil recovery will likely grow as well, Fry said. As old basins produce less and less oil with traditional extraction technology, \u201cI think we\u2019re going to have to deploy EOR, from a production perspective,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that the market\u2019s going to drive it.\u201d<\/p>\n Jorde, the lawyer representing landowners, thinks that Summit in fact planned to pursue EOR from the outset of the pipeline, but that admitting so \u201cwouldn\u2019t have been the best path to getting the project approved.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Permission to explore all options\u2019<\/p>\n While Summit changed their story online, a series of permitting roadblocks on the ground may have also propelled the pivot.<\/p>\n South Dakota banned<\/a> the use of eminent domain for siting carbon pipelines in 2025, creating a hurdle in the Summit pipeline\u2019s planned route to North Dakota. Further complicating the terrain, this month a North Dakota judge revoked<\/a> a permit from Summit that would have allowed it to store CO2 underground in the state.<\/p>\n Those decisions, in turn, are imperiling Summit\u2019s permit in Iowa which binds the pipeline to its original route. Summit petitioned the Iowa Utilities Commission in September 2025 to amend the terms of its permit and remove mentions of a specific route or destination.<\/p>\n Attorney Brian E. Jorde makes arguments on behalf of landowners opposed to Summit Carbon Solutions\u2019 planned carbon capture pipeline before South Dakota Supreme Court justices on Tuesday, March 19 at the Johnson Fine Arts Center in Aberdeen. Photo courtesy of South Dakota NewsMedia Association<\/p>\n Summit is now considering destinations in Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado and Kansas, Bret Dublinske, an attorney for the company, said in an Iowa district court hearing in September. \u201cWe\u2019re asking for permission to explore all options,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Jorde does not believe the permit can be altered so substantially. \u201cThis obvious pivot \u2026 should completely invalidate that application,\u201d Jorde said. \u201cThe Iowa Utilities Commission should just take that action without any motion, simply nullify the permit and then force them to start over and tell us who they really are once and for all.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Image-10.jpeg\" "\\"Summit")
<\/p>\n![\"Summit](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SummitPipelines750px.jpeg\" "\\"Summit")
While simultaneously halting government action on what he\u2019s called \u201cthe climate hoax\u201d and kneecapping development of affordable renewables like solar and wind, Trump says he wants to usher in an era of American \u201cenergy dominance.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Attorney](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Brian-E.-Jorde-Landowners-1024x747.jpg\" "\\"Summit")
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