Indiana to Pursue Permitting Primacy over Carbon Dioxide Storage Wells

January 28, 2026

Print This Article Share it With Friends

by Leslie Bonilla Muñiz (Indiana Capital Chronicle) The EPA makes those decisions in Indiana and elsewhere, but an increasing number of states are seeking primary enforcement authority. -- Hoosier leaders plan to take over federal review of a pipeline of contentious projects to inject carbon dioxide deep underground.

Nine applications for Indiana sites are before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to an agency tracker of Class VI permits.

They’re one of six classes of wells the EPA regulates under an Underground Injection Control program, for substances like oil, gas and now, the geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide.

CO2 capture and storage proposals have faced intense local opposition in Indiana.

A bill under consideration by the Indiana General Assembly would require the Department of Natural Resources’ autonomous board to seek primary enforcement authority over Class VI wells. House Bill 1368 also outlines a state-level regulatory scheme.

“Wherever you stand on sequestration … First of all, we want to keep Indiana competitive, bring in business and jobs,” said Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso.

“Second of all, we want to be prepared to pivot with whatever happens in Washington, because Washington has been like a pendulum on a clock and it’s bouncing off the sides,” he said.

Soliday, the bill’s author, spoke during a committee hearing last week that featured enthusiastic industry testimony.

But some skeptics fear the state isn’t fully equipped to carry it out.

Primacy’s popularity

Six states already hold primary enforcement authority for Class VI wells, according to an EPA table: Arizona, Louisiana, North Dakota, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming.

...

One Indiana project has already obtained a Class VI permit: Wabash Valley Resources, which plans to produce ammonia fertilizer at a a former coal gasification plant — and pump the emissions underground. It’s a pilot with its own state laws and rules.

Others want in, too.

Sequestration would allow ethanol producers, for instance, to “fulfil(l) global and domestic demand for cleaner fuels,” said Tim Phelps, a lobbyist with Hathaway Strategies, who represented the Indiana Ethanol Producers Association in committee.

“While thorough review is vital to the public interest,” he said, the application process under the EPA has been “inconsistent,” causing “significant delays.”

“We are supportive of initiatives which seek to streamline this permitting process, to allow these projects — which involve significant investments of time and capital — to come to fruition,” Phelps said.

Association member POET, which bills itself as the world’s largest producer of bioethanol, is pursing Class VI permits at each of its five Indiana plants.

“We … support any effort to streamline permitting timelines,” said Hamilton Smith, a lobbyist for Ice Miller representing POET.

DNR has also made the case for pace.

“By accepting primacy for Class VI permitting, Indiana will be best positioned to work with all stakeholders to ensure that applications are reviewed with speed and efficiency, following all federal and state regulations,” spokesman Marty Benson said.

“Instead of relying upon an out-of-state regulator, questions can be addressed by DNR staff in Indiana,” he added — an argument industry leaders echoed.

...

Home ties also played into DNR General Counsel Stephanie Flittner’s testimony.

Primacy would “ensur(e) these decisions are made in Indiana — closer to Indiana geology, Indiana communities and Indiana stakeholders,” she said.

Trust, resources

Others are skeptical of a switch.

Kerwin Olson, the executive director of Citizens Action Coalition, said his ratepayer advocacy organization and peers think agencies like DNR can be too lax.

...

That’s not to say he had the utmost confidence in even the EPA.

“There’s permits that have been issued that we thought never should have been issued,” he said. “So I don’t know that it’s that we have any more confidence, per se, in outcomes at the EPA … but it’s a matter of staffing levels, expertise, resources, time.”

DNR’s Benson said staff “do not anticipate a fiscal impact” from running a Class VI program, noting the agency already has primacy for oil and gas wells. He also cited that experience in defending personnel “expertise and professionalism.” READ MORE

Related articles

‘Too many unknowns’: As company forges on with carbon sequestration project, residents mobilize (Indiana Capital Chronicle)

Excerpt from Indiana Capital Chronicle: Wabash Valley Resources (WVR) intends to pipe and inject 1.67 million tons of carbon dioxide annually a mile below the area’s surface as part of its plan to produce “green” anhydrous ammonia fertilizer at a former coal gasification plant in Vigo County.

The company — based in West Terre Haute and formed in Delaware — envisions investment, jobs and plenty of reasonably priced, sustainably produced fertilizer.

But Vigo and Vermillion County residents near the injection sites fear potential consequences like pipe ruptures and water contamination. They’re skeptical of the company’s intentions — and its use of public incentives.

...

Wabash Valley Resources Vice President of External Affairs Greg Zoeller said the company had attempted to address concerns in two ‘town hall’-style meetings, but said, “The fear of the unknown is strong.”

Project fertilizer

The United States in 2022 was the world’s second-largest importer of fertilizers, purchasing 10.7 million metric tons, according to the World Integrated Trade Solution.

WVR aims to disrupt those imports by producing 500,000 metric tons of anhydrous ammonia fertilizer annually — half of the amount it says the Eastern Corn Belt uses each year.

Alongside competitively priced, homegrown fertilizer for farmers, WVR expects the plant to produce 100 permanent jobs with salaries averaging $129,000 and up to 500 union construction jobs, according to a media kit.

Connecticut-based Philipp Brothers Fertilizer and investors snapped up the former SG Solutions gasification plant in West Terre Haute in 2016, according to parent company Phibro.

“There’s been work going on on this project since then,” WVR’s Zoeller said.

...

WVR plans to liquify the carbon and pump it through 11 miles of pipeline to the injection sites for permanent storage 5,400 feet underground.

The pipeline will be eight inches in diameter and buried at least five feet deep, according to WVR spokesman Pete Rimsans. Its exact path is still in negotiations, he said.

To operate, the plant needs to clinch a final Class VI permit — regulating carbon dioxide sequestration — from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA has granted just one thus far: to the Archer Daniels Midland Company operating in Macon County, Illinois, according to the agency. And it’s approved a single draft permit: to WVR.

The company is also working to secure air permit modifications from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM).

...

It addition, it plans to take advantage of recently increased federal tax credits for such projects. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act raised the credit for permanent carbon dioxide sequestration from $45 per metric ton to $85. They expire 12 years after a facility goes into operation; WVR says it plans to inject for 12 years.

...

“If you look at the cost of the process of capturing the carbon, liquefying it, piping it to an injection site and storing it, the $85-a-ton should actually pay for the input costs,” Zoeller said. “So we have a loan that they believe will be paid off using the carbon credits.”

“It actually is meant to equal the upfront costs and the maintenance costs of this whole system,” he added. “I mean, we wouldn’t be doing it if there wasn’t going to be a profit, but the profit would really come from the sale of anhydrous ammonia fertilizer.”

...

Vermillion and Vigo County residents have mobilized to oppose what they call a “carbon dump,” packing meetings with the EPA, IDEM and the company itself and even protesting at a Saturday caucus selection of Ford’s replacement.

More than 1,000 people have joined the Concerned Citizens Against Wabash Valley Resources group. READ MORE