The leader of the company behind a proposed carbon pipeline project says the company plans to move forward despite the defeat of a major pipeline ballot question.
Lee Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Summit Carbon Solutions. The company plans to build a carbon pipeline across multiple states including South Dakota.
The company previously faced push back from some South Dakotans over legal disputes with landowners on eminent domain rights. It was also denied its original permit with the Public Utilities Commission.
The commission said Summit needs to work more closely with landowners before they would approve the project.
Blank said his company has been trying.
“The company has worked extremely hard in South Dakota over the last year to year and a half to be extremely transparent with the landowners of South Dakota and finding a route that is the most acceptable route that we can find. Really going landowner by landowner and building a relationship with those landowners. And we will continue to do that as we move the project forward,” said Blank.
Voters overwhelmingly rejected Referred Law 21, a pipeline regulation bill that may have smoothed the project’s future in the state. He said Summit plans to re-apply with the state PUC despite the vote.
“So what we will do next is on the 19th of November we will be filing our application with the Public Utilities Commission in South Dakota. Then there is a year that they work on the actual process before they give us a ruling. Statutorily they have to do that within a year, they don’t have to take a year but ultimately can’t really take longer than that. So, we are going to file that on the 19th of this month and then we will get that process started,” said Blank.
Opponents of RL 21 said the vote shows the pipeline is a non-partisan issue that South Dakotans do not agree with.
