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By Martin Lockman, Ashwin Murthy and Romany M. Webb

Read the Report on Proceedings on May 2, 2025 on decommissioning offshore oil and gas infrastructure in Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive. 

By Carolina Arlota and Michael B. Gerrard with Pria Deanna Mahadevan

Read the report, Legal Issues in Oceanic Transport of Carbon Dioxide for Sequestration, in Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive.

Martin Lockman

Both emissions reductions and removal of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere are essential if we hope to minimize the damage caused by climate change and globally reduce our net emissions of greenhouse gasses to zero. Some CO2 removal techniques, like “direct air capture” that uses chemical and electrochemical processes to capture atmospheric CO2 at relatively low concentrations, generate a stream of captured CO2 that is then injected into underground rock formations referred to as “geologic storage.” CO2 pipelines represent the most efficient way to transport high volumes of captured CO2 to geologic storage locations. However, while 5,000 miles of CO2 pipeline have already been constructed across the South and Midwest United States, the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) most recent estimates suggest that between 30,000 and 96,000 miles of CO2 pipelines will be needed to support the United States’ 2050 net-zero emissions goal.

The Biden Administration has strongly supported the adoption of carbon removal and storage technologies, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 directed DOE to fund four regional “direct air capture hubs” (DAC Hubs) — networks that connect direct air capture projects with sequestration facilities and commercial users of captured CO2. However, the CO2 pipelines that will be needed to support DAC Hubs remain subject to erratic regulation. Few of the federal legal frameworks governing pipeline infrastructure were designed with CO2 pipelines in mind, and most regulation of CO2 pipeline siting, development, and operation is conducted at the state level.

This paper assesses the legal framework for developing CO2 pipelines to support DAC Hub projects. The analysis in this paper focuses on privately owned and developed CO₂ pipelines, rather than assessing the feasibility of government agencies (state or federal) constructing and operating pipelines of their own. Through this lens, this paper offers a detailed review of permitting and regulatory regimes in ten states distributed across the continental United States that were identified as potential candidates for DAC Hubs: Alabama, Arizona, California, Illinois, Louisiana, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wyoming. Building from this regulatory review, this paper identifies four key barriers to the wide-scale rapid development of CO2 pipelines necessary to support a comprehensive system of national DAC Hubs, and suggests four key recommendations for improving the state and federal frameworks surrounding CO₂ pipelines.

Read the paper, Permitting CO₂ Pipelines, in Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive.

By Matthew Eisenson & Romany M. Webb

Read the report, Expert Insights on Best Practices for Community Benefits Agreements on Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive here. 

By Romany M. Webb and Michael B. Gerrard

Read the report Overcoming Impediments to CO2 Storage: Legal Issues in the United States and Canada in Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive.

by Romany M. Webb and Michael B. Gerrard

By Michael Gerrard, Romany Webb, et al. 

The CarbonSAFE Casadia project team is conducting a pre-feasibility study to evaluate technical and nontechnical aspects of collecting and storing 50 MMT of CO2 in a safe, ocean basalt reservoir offshore from Washington State and British Columbia. Sub-seafloor basalts are very common on Earth and enable CO2 mineralization as a long-term storage mechanism, permanently sequestering the carbon in solid rock form. Our project goals include the evaluation of this reservoir as an industrial-scale CO2 storage complex, developing potential source/transport scenarios, conducting laboratory and modeling studies to determine the potential capacity of the reservoir, and completing an assessment of economic, regulatory and project management risks. Potential scenarios include sources and transport options in the USA and in Canada. The overall project network consists of a coordination team of researchers from collaborating academic institutions, subcontractors, and external participants. Lessons learned from this study at the Cascadia Basin location may be transferrable elsewhere around the globe. 

Read the article Geological storage of CO2 in sub-seafloor basalt: the CarbonSAFE pre-feasibility study offshore Washington State and British Columbia in Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive.

By Romany Webb, Michael Gerrard

Reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is vital to mitigate climate change. To date reduction efforts have primarily focused on minimizing the production of carbon dioxide during electricity generation, transport, and other activities. Going forward, to the extent that carbon dioxide continues to be produced, it will need to be captured before release. The captured carbon dioxide can then be utilized in some fashion, or it can be injected into underground geological formations – e.g., depleted oil and gas reserves, deep saline aquifers, or basalt rock reservoirs – where, it is hoped, it will remain permanently sequestered (“carbon capture and storage” or “CCS”). Research is currently being undertaken into the possibility of injecting carbon dioxide into the seabed. One study, involving researchers from Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, aims to identify possible injection sites in the seabed along the northeast coast of the U.S. It is anticipated that, following identification of suitable sites, a demonstration project will be undertaken to assess the feasibility of offshore CCS. This paper outlines key regulatory requirements for the demonstration project and any subsequent commercial operations.

Read the report Policy Readiness for Offshore Carbon Dioxide Storage in the Northeast in Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive.