Ohio legislators are considering bills that would bar local governments from having a say in permitting projects that capture carbon dioxide emissions and inject them underground. The legislation could even force some landowners to let their property be used for carbon dioxide storage.
The framework proposed in the twin bills being considered by the state House and Senate starkly contrasts with Ohio’s approach to wind and solar farms, most of which can be blocked by counties.
Instead, carbon capture and storage projects would follow a process similar to what’s used for oil and gas drilling, in which property owners must allow development on or below their land if enough neighbors support it.
At least one large energy company, Tenaska, is already talking to Ohio landowners about obtaining rights to drill wells and store carbon dioxide from industrial and energy operations deep underground. An executive with the firm said the legislation would provide “clarity” for its planned carbon storage hub serving Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
“This project will provide manufacturers, industrial facilities, and other businesses in this region with a solution to address growing environmental regulations and climate goals,” said Ali Kairys, senior director of project development for Tenaska.
The company is in discussions with various carbon-emitting businesses, including steel refineries, ethanol plants, and power plants. The Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub could also be a potential customer, Kairys said.
In Ohio, Tenaska is eyeing Harrison, Jefferson, and Carroll counties as prime places to store CO2 underground. The three counties are among the state’s top oil and gas producers and have a history of coal mining. Tenaska initially hopes to store captured carbon dioxide in the Knox formation, which ranges from 8,500 feet to 12,000 feet below the Earth’s surface, Kairys said. Second-stage storage would use another formation roughly 5,500 to 8,000 feet underground.
Other carbon sequestration projects could be on the horizon. The Great Plains Institute has identified roughly three dozen industrial facilities across the state as candidates for carbon capture projects. And even though the Trump administration is relaxing the environmental regulations that may motivate such efforts, 45Q tax credits expanded by the Inflation Reduction Act incentivize companies nationwide to develop storage projects.
Ohio’s House Bill 170 and Senate Bill 136 would give the state Department of Natural Resources “sole and exclusive authority to regulate carbon sequestration,” a power the agency also has over oil and gas production via existing law. The Ohio Supreme Court has interpreted the oil and gas law’s language to block local government regulation of drilling, even through general zoning rules that apply to other businesses.
If passed, the bills would similarly deprive counties and townships of any say over sequestration, said Bev Reed, an organizer for the Buckeye Environmental Network. “It’s … another really tragic thing that the Legislature is forcing on us.”
The bills would also authorize a “consolidation” process that operators can undertake to force landowners to allow carbon dioxide storage in their property’s subsurface “pore space” if owners of 70% of the remaining area for an injection project have signed on. The process is similar to that for unitization, which lets oil and gas companies drill through dissenting landowners’ properties.
The chief of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ oil and gas management division would be required to grant consolidation if it was “reasonably necessary to facilitate the underground storage of carbon dioxide.” A landowner could only object on the grounds that the facility’s design threatens “a commercially valuable mineral,” such as oil, gas, or coal.
“You don’t get to object and say this is dangerous, this is ill-conceived or for any other reason,” said Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, a professor at Cleveland State University College of Law. “Reasonably necessary is a very low standard” for forcing property owners to give up the use of their pore space, she added.
Asked to respond to advocacy groups’ complaints that the process is unfair, Tenaska’s Kairys focused instead on landowners’ potential for income.
