In a move that seems to run counter to his big-government history, but appears to reflect the Realpolitik nature of state politicians responding to massive constituent outcries, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) has signed legislation to “pause” new so-called “carbon capture sequestration” projects in Illinois.
Owen Klinsky writes for The Western Journal:
“The law, commonly referred to as the Safe CCS Act, places a two-year moratorium on the construction of carbon dioxide pipelines until either July 2026 or until the Federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issues revised safety regulations on carbon capture projects.”
MRCTV readers might find this surprising, given the mix of greedy political forces and multinational corporate interests (including the infamous BlackRock) that have mixed to push huge multi-state “carbon capture pipeline” schemes such as the Heartland Greenway System in Illinois, Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Nebraska.
And, as Rebecca Terrell wrote for TheNewAmerican in 2022, that “carbon-capture pipeline” push already has been propped up and hyped by a $2.1 billion federal loan guarantee included in the Biden-RiNO-WEF “Build Back Better” “Infrastructure Plan” passed in 2021.
That Heartland Greenway System has targeted Illinois as the end-point to deposit the “captured carbon,” burying it in, as Terrell noted in 2022, an “underground storage facility,” – an absurd, anti-productive, resource-consuming scheme reminiscent of FDR’s utterly immoral and dumb “Agricultural Adjustment Act” that paid farmers to destroy crops, and simlar to his “Civilian Works Agency” and “Civilian Conservation Corps” that paid people to dig ditches and to refill the ditches. It is the kind of collectivist central planning that led in 1935 to the then-new term “boondoggle,” and, as Ralph Raico noted in 2019 for the Mises Institute, it was the kind of central planning that led to pro-Nazi German news outlets praising FDR’s policies as “…not very different from the Führer’s.”
The contemptable, government-fueled, tax-fed, nature of the new "carbon capture" nonsense doesn’t just starkly and darkly, distinguish itself from real, voluntary economic activity, it reminds us of the faulty and unfounded premise that “carbon dioxide is driving an anthropogenic climate disaster.”
I extensively have written on this climate canard, and readers can refer to numerous citations refuting the claim, citations ranging from the Climate Cult overlooking or embracing internal attempts to manipulate recent temperature data, to the fact that their own infamous “hockey-stick graph” (featured in Al Gore’s 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth”) actually shows that, historically, CO2 levels jump AFTER temperature increases, not prior to the temperature increases.
So, given all the glad-handing and political-corporate malfeasance already established within the Climate Cult, one might ask why Pritzker -- a classic collectivist political player, and a person who is partially responsible for Illinois recently being cited as one of the worst states for private business and free markets – is taking this "stand" against the carbon-capture pipe-laying.
Related: Illinois Gov't Appeals Ruling Blocking Pritzker's Gun-Grab
It turns out that recent carbon-pipeline history -- and a massive grassroots groundswell against the use of eminent domain for the carbon-pipes – have applied sufficient pressure to prompt Pritzker to sign the bill – and that the bill is a charade that likely will facilitate easier eminent domain after the two-year “pause.”
Writes Klinsky:
“Calls for additional regulation on CCS began in 2020 following a CO2 pipeline rupture in Satartia, Mississippi, that hospitalized 45 people and forced hundreds of others to evacuate, according to the Springfield State-Journal Register.”
Though the incident, and concern over eminent domain, saw this new two-year moratorium on new projects, many Illinois residents have closely looked at the bill and seen that when the moratorium ends, the government can move more rapidly to seize land.
Klinsky notes:
“Nevertheless, for many state lawmakers and agricultural groups, including the Illinois Farm Bureau, the moratorium does not go far enough to satisfactorily address the issues of eminent domain and groundwater pollution.
“’While I respect efforts to modernize our energy industry, I fear that this legislation poses far too many significant risks to the citizens of our state, particularly when it comes to potential groundwater contamination and carbon dioxide leaks or ruptures of the pipelines,’ Republican Illinois state Sen. Sally Beason said, according to the Daily Journal.
’In addition to those real and present risks, I am also greatly concerned about the eminent domain threats against property owners contained within the law,’ Beason said. ‘The way that the law is written, some landowners who do not quickly choose to sell their rights may receive unfair compensation.’”
Of course, any government determination of what it will give landowners when it seizes the property is not a voluntary transaction, so, by definition, it’s unfair compensation.
But the message is clear.
And a close look at the new statute reveals that, during this “time off” period, the politicians will regroup and work to target more land. Then, when the pause ends, farmers again will be in danger of the land-grabbers. Section 10 of the Illinois statute even creates a tax-subsidized “trust fund” to perpetuate the eminent domain and it allows the “sequestration companies” to get the state to force neighbors in pipeline target regions to “integrate pore space” as if they are giving up “easement” land.
So, Pritzker’s seemingly heroic shift to protect property appears to be little more than a delay tactic, and a false response to the public outcry against this government-corporate climate change corruption.
And the statute doesn’t really protect private property from the climate cult.
No wonder many people in Illinois are still trying to sound the alarm.