Folks,

Jeff Steinbronn has been in a fight in the state of Indiana against CCS.
FreeSoil Foundation sends it’s warmest regards to Jeff for his unrelenting work to expose the TRUTH about Carbon Capture and the many hazards a CO2 pipeline would bring to a community!

Commence Letter….
1/27/26

Honorable Senators,

Thank you for your time and attention to Senate Bill 7.

     I want you to know the evidence that has led me to the conclusion that EPA Region 5 and Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA) were not ready for enacting proper safety regulations for transport of liquid, dense liquid, and supercritical phases of carbon dioxide. PHMSA was only established in 2004, and was primarily tasked with tightening up safety in oil & gas due to multiple leaks and ruptures resulting in explosive events in the industry.  Initially they brought in talented operators to require more stringent attention to routine maintenance, operational best practices, and inspections that directly caused many fewer leaks, ruptures, and explosive events. As PHMSA’s successes were gaining momentum in oil & gas, they were assigned additional duty to oversee the new emerging (~2008) Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) industry, but were NOT given significant additional funding.  Therefore, they had to take their experts “out of their own hide,” and there were no CCS experts in the United States as there were no operating CCS Class VI injection wells and support facilities to draw experienced operators into the PHMSA organization.

    None of the PHMSA regulations prevented the “Gassing of Satartia, Mississippi” on 2/22/2020.  When I visited PHMSA HQ in the Dept of Transportation Building on the Washington Navy Yard with the Iowa delegation on March 12, 2025 (same day as our meeting with Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa), The lead Mechanical Engineer talked about how the regulations had been proposed based on the Satartia incident, but were not implemented. When he did not mention how the isolation valves did not shut by the remote control operator, I explained what the lessons learned from Satartia should have been.  The isolation valves did not shut until they were mechanically operated (breaker bar) on the scene of the valve 3 HOURS and 18 MINUTES after they were told that they (operators in the control room in Plano, Texas) had a rupture in the CO2 Pipeline near Satartia. The PHMSA “experts” did not understand Joule-Thompson Cooling (> 100 F drop in temperature due to the supercritical fluid form of CO2 (scCO2) absorbing vaporization energy from the surroundings (other scCO2 and the metal piping or Valve body and ball (which is intended to rotate 90 degrees to shut the isolation valve, and cutoff flow of the fluid)).

     The valve bodies contracted faster than the ball (due its greater thickness of metal in the ball) and the body clenched the ball so tightly that the ball could not rotate to the fully shut position under remote operation.  They also did NOT understand that the two isolation valves that failed to shut fully (for > 3 hours) still had damaged seats and should have been replaced but were not.  Therefore, if another rupture occurs, the two defective valves will not isolate the leak even if they are in the fully shut position.  Their Mechanical Engineer did not speak for the rest of the hour meeting.

     If you have not read the full PHMSA incident report (264 pages) and do NOT have experience operating fluid systems (I have Nuclear Power Training and experience on four different types of Naval Nuclear reactor plants from time in the U.S. Navy Submarine Service, plus understanding of the five phases of matter that carbon dioxide possesses from my Masters work in Physics from Texas A&M University-Commerce), you may not understand the lessons that should have been learned from Satartia incidents (yes, there are more than one incident of release of significant amounts of CO2 from the Denbury Pipeline – now EXXON-Denbury pipeline).

    EPA Region 5 has not issued lessons learned from the Archer Daniels Midlands (ADM) CCS monitoring well loss of its sensors (reported seven months after ADM could no longer monitor CCS well #1 (injected 1 million tons of CO2 from 2012-2015) and within two months after the loss of monitoring well #1, CCS monitoring well #2 lost temperature and pressure (T & P) indication below the caprock.  ADM had NO monitoring below the caprock of either CCS injection wells, and CCS well #2 was still injecting CO2 and working towards ADM’s injection goal of 1 million tons of CO2 per year in DIRECT Violation of their Class VI CCS Injection well permitting.  ADM CCS well #2 was shutdown after the total loss of T & P, but was allowed to restart and continue injection on 8/29/2025, with no lessons learned, nor an explanation of how monitoring was restored, nor how the ADM violation of the Clean Water Act was resolved to the public.

    Until this is publicly resolved, Indiana should not allow a single CCS Class VI injection well,monitoring wells and support facilities to be built, particularly because these companies are taking the advice and designs from ADM who has violated the Clean Water Act.

     Building and operating systems and facilities that are very similar to the leaking facilities will provide the similar results.  Thinking otherwise is insanity (see Albert Einstein’s quote on insanity definition).

Even if you have already seen Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s documentary, “The Pipeline Deception” please watch at least 5.5 minutes of the 26 minute YouTube Video from 9:30 time mark to the 15:00 mark, as it has some detail of the Satartia Gassing from a scCO2 transportation pipeline:

Link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llcvrKDJRo0

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Evidence of injecting and leaving an over-pressure condition (which is why the 50 year Post-Injection Site Care (PISC) is in the U.S. Code, and should NOT be waived by EPA Region 5; (Another Oil & Gas analogy that should have been adopted, but was not):

Lake Boehmer, Texas continues to have toxic brine (slightly radioactive and filled with heavy metals like arsenic) flowing into it  at >600 gallons per minute.  The link:

https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/lake-boehmer-toxic-water-oil-well-leak/

Lake Boehmer is evidence that acidic brine does not respect the cement “plugging” of wells when under an over-pressure condition, which any CCS well will be when “plugged” and abandoned by the CCS Injection company (companies).  This also applies to the CO2 resistant cement between the various casings in the CCS well systems based on the ADM design.

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     The current regulations from EPA and PHMSA  will NOT prevent recurrence of the above.  These facts are how I reached my conclusion that neither EPA nor PHMSA is “ready” for the accelerated CCS industry expansion in the state of Indiana.

Having the Indiana DNR/NRC simply adopting current EPA regulations with ZERO experience in the CCS Class VI Injection wells, monitoring wells, and support equipment and facilities is a formula for failure.

Rep. Soliday’s push for Primacy Authority over Class VI CCS Injection wells and have rule-making in DNR/NRC department in his HB 1368 (Carbon) is a plan to accelerate the Unconstitutional taking of private property for private gain, and Rep. Doug Miller’s HB 1416 is a plan to eliminate local control over the counties economic destiny. Think of the Federal government dictating redistricting in your state without local input (state house determined maps) – how would you feel?  (You were the Local authority then…)

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There is a viable financial option besides putting CCS in operation in Indiana that allows Free Enterprise and NOT financed on the backs of US taxpayers: conversion of CO2 into methanol (CH3OH).  Here is the fiscal argument:

     $85 per ton in Tax Credits to the injector of CO2 in CCS (private company for private gain) – provided by the US Taxpayer;  OR

    ~$777 per ton of CO2 converted into methanol (CH3OH) upon selling the methanol for mixing with diesel fuel/ethanol + Gasoline, or multiple industrial feedstocks. (Free Enterprise embraces risk vs. reward, leaving the taxpayers out of the supply side of this funding equation)

The conceptual part: Inject CO2 and rob the carbon cycle of “plant food” (see the website: climatechangereconsidered.org for the real data and draw your own conclusions, don’t have them forced on you by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – these are the governments who hate the United States and her prosperity), and reduce production of food world-wide, plus the threat of future ruptures (life & health threat – see the 5.5 minutes recommended of the video linked above) and threat to Lowest Underground Source of Drinking Water (LUSDW) and the aquifers above it;  OR become Energy Dominant through methanol production in addition to ethanol, ammonia, cement, etc.

These arguments are NOT anti-ethanol, NOR anti-Enhanced Oil Recovery (anti-EOR), NOR anti-commerce, and Concerned Citizens Against Wabash Valley Resources will not have to be against them should they recant their CCS designs on so-called “Pore Space” by withdrawing their permits for Class VI wells.

WVR can build their Hydrogen Hub (the first to succeed, when 19 others failed) and Ammonia production facilities, but wait as others succeed in the newly patented methanol production (they (WVR) have been put in contact with the CEO of the corporation who will be in full scale “Proof of Concept” testing later this spring).  As the CO2 is captured and NOT released immediately, their Carbon Index (CI) can be claimed to be negative.

Again, thank you for listening on Tuesday!

God bless your journey!  God bless Indiana!!  God bless America!!!

Jeff Steinbronn

CDR (Ret.) USN  Submarines

Adj. Prof. (Ret.) calculus-based Physics & Chemistry, IU-Bloomington

Seven-time Indiana Academic Super Bowl Champion (Science) Coach

M.B.A., M.A.T.