FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 6, 2025
New Film Exposes Dangers of CO2 Pipelines, Abuse of Eminent Domain to Seize Farmland for Risky Carbon Capture Boondoggle
“UNDER PRESSURE: A Carbon Capture Land Grab Threatens Rural America” features victims and first responders from the Satartia, Mississippi CO2 pipeline rupture and Iowa landowners battling eminent domain for a massive proposed buildout
Hastings, NE – A new documentary short exposes the risks of Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) and the hazardous carbon dioxide (CO2) pipelines associated with the technology. “UNDER PRESSURE: A Carbon Capture Land Grab Threatens Rural America” juxtaposes interviews with victims and first responders of a 2020 CO2 pipeline rupture in Satartia, Mississippi with interviews of Midwestern landowners, where a multi-billion dollar corporation is poised to seize farmland from hundreds of families via eminent domain for the world’s largest CO2 pipeline.
The 10-minute film was produced and directed by Elisa Gambino and produced by Bold Alliance. Special thanks to the late journalist Dan Zegart, who provided Bold with access to the 911 recordings heard in the film, which he obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests. Dan also conducted the interviews seen in the film with the impacted victims and first responders of the Satartia pipeline disaster that he documented in his award-winning reporting published by Huffington Post: “Gassing Satartia.”
“Satartia should have been a wake-up call, but half a decade later, and we still don’t have meaningful federal safety protocols in place for CO2 pipelines. Our elected leaders need to put their constituents, not corporations, first and rein the carbon pipeline industry in before it’s too late,” said Dennis Valen, an Iowa landowner facing eminent domain takings for a CO2 pipeline, who is featured in the film.
“The carbon pipeline industry, its opponents, along with state and local governments, are all aware that current safety standards are inadequate. Yet, the most meaningful safety practices to be enforced in recent years came from a Community Benefits Agreement between Bold Alliance and Tallgrass Energy, not from federal regulators. If we can’t stop every hazardous carbon pipeline, then we need to guarantee that impacted communities are aware of the risks they are facing. Under Pressure shows the reality of the burden that the carbon pipeline industry places on our communities,” said Emma Schmit, Bold Alliance’s Pipeline Fighters Director.
Viewers of the film are encouraged to take action by signing onto a Bold Alliance petition against the proposed federalization of permitting for carbon pipelines, to “Stop the federal carbon pipeline boondoggle land grab.”
View “UNDER PRESSURE” on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/0yqgxXwoCmQ
View the petition page:
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/no-eminent-domain-for-private-gain-stop-the-federal-carbon-pipeline-boondoggle-land-grab
About Easement Action Teams LLC:
The Easement Action Teams Landowners and Lawyers Cooperative (LLC) works with local communities to provide immediate legal representation to landowners facing pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure. Our first priority is to protect landowners’ property rights and water. We believe landowners should have the ultimate right of what does and does not happen on their land. We stand against the use of eminent domain for private gain. (https://easementLLC.org)
About Pipeline Fighters Hub:
The Pipeline Fighters Hub provides technical, legal, story telling and organizing assistance to any community fighting pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure, with the goal of protecting the land and water. (https://pipelinefighters.org)
About Bold Alliance:
The Bold Alliance is coordinating state-based groups with our Pipeline Fighters Hub and landowner legal groups called the Easement Action Teams to stop carbon pipelines from using eminent domain for private gain. We believe that carbon capture and storage (CCS) is unproven and overly expensive and wastefully incentivized approach to climate change, and that the carbon pipelines needed for CCS are poorly planned, under-regulated, and risky infrastructure. These huge and complex projects should not move forward until counties, states and the federal government prove first that they are a better climate solution than renewable energy, and second that safety, planning, and routing standards are in place to avoid inefficient chaotic development driven by wasteful federal spending. (https://boldalliance.org)
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