Summit Carbon Solutions announced this week it's abandoning North Dakota as the destination for its Midwest CO2 pipeline...permanently. The new route goes Iowa through Nebraska to Wyoming. North Dakota isn't mentioned anywhere in the plan.
Here's what it took to bring it down:
Two separate North Dakota district court judges ruled the state's own 2009 CO2 storage law unconstitutional. Back to back. The rulings voided every permit Summit held for underground storage northwest of Bismarck.
The issue was something called an "amalgamation" clause. If 60% of neighboring landowners agreed to the project, Summit could force the remaining 40% in...whether they wanted it or not. The courts said that violated the North Dakota Constitution. You can't take someone's property without a jury determining just compensation first.
Both judges agreed. Both permits...gone.
At the same time, South Dakota banned eminent domain for CO2 pipelines entirely in March 2025...cutting off the land corridor Summit needed to connect Iowa to North Dakota in the first place.
The project collapsed from both ends simultaneously.
What's left of the original plan:
27 ethanol plants instead of 57
Iowa to Nebraska to Wyoming
A sequestration site in Wyoming that hasn't even been publicly identified yet
A company that says North Dakota "remains important" but just rerouted 2,000 miles around it.
North Dakota landowners don't care. They won.