by John Laumer, Philadelphia – TreeHugger.com

Pretend it’s 2040. US citizens live in a Carbon Constrained Era, in which Federal law enables legal access by carbon injectors to geological pore space, deep under the earth–pretty much wherever they want it. The law also protects carbon dioxide injectors and generators from being held liable for any CO2 “leaks” that may come, regardless of cause. Installation of high pressure pipelines, to move carbon dioxide from coal plants to distant injection well fields, were seen as a “taking” of private property rights as well as a taxpayer bailout of the coal utilities. Outrage over the pipeline projects brought conservatives and liberals together in a fight which they eventually lost.

So, after the CO2 injection wells were drilled and pipelines built, liquid CO2 was injected on a massive scale, filling cracks and pores over increasingly wide areas of Southern US States. Conflict lingered…so that when direct costs indeed fell on property and mineral rights holders, a legal defense of injection, hinging on the US Constitution’s Commerce Clause, was heard by the Supreme Court. Heard in testimony: Injected C02 was shown to have crossed state lines, thousands of feet underground.