Court Sides With N.D. Landowners, Counties Challenging Summit Carbon Pipeline, Reverses Permit and Remands to Public Service Commission
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct. 9, 2026
Court Sides With N.D. Landowners, Counties Challenging Summit Carbon Pipeline, Reverses Permit and Remands to Public Service Commission
Court orders N.D. PSC to reconsider confidentiality of Summit’s CO2 plume dispersion model, adverse impacts on welfare of citizens
Hastings, NE – Bold issued the following statement after a North Dakota District Court today ruled for landowners and counties in a case challenging the approval of a permit for Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed CO2 pipeline by the North Dakota Public Service Commission:
“Landowners and counties across North Dakota have spent years defending their rights from being usurped by an out-of-state pipeline company. The court’s decision is an encouraging step in ensuring landowners and communities, not pipeline interests, are protected,” said Emma Schmit, Bold Alliance Organizing Director.
Burleigh County South Central Judicial District Judge Jackson J. Lofgren’s ruling overturned the PSC on four significant issues:
reversed the PSC’s determination that the state’s pipeline permitting law automatically superseded and preempted county land use and zoning ordinances with direction to reevaluate them in accordance with law;
ordered the PSC to reconsider the confidentiality of Summit’s CO2 plume dispersion model;
reversed the PSC’s finding that Summit adequately addressed an alternative route south of Bismarck; and
directed the PSC to reconsider whether the pipeline project would produce minimal adverse effects on the welfare of the citizens of North Dakota.
As a consequence, PSC will need to reopen its administrative evidentiary hearing to reconsider the foregoing matters, a process that could extend well into 2027.
It is unclear how Summit will respond, given South Dakota’s prohibition on the use of eminent domain for carbon dioxide pipelines that has blocked Summit’s route between Iowa and North Dakota, and the impact of a related North Dakota court decision that found the state’s carbon storage law unconstitutional. Today’s decision is a further headwind for Summit’s beleaguered CO2 pipeline project.
Bold’s Easement Teams in Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota and North Dakota have been organizing landowner opposition to the Summit CO2 pipeline for years. Bold’s Easement Teams are helping fund attorneys who have represented landowners at agency hearings that resulted in pipeline permit rejections in North Dakota and South Dakota, and the most-contested project in the history at the Iowa Utilities Commission, where landowners with the Iowa Easement Team also continue to challenge Summit’s pipeline route approval in the courts.
About Bold’s Easement Action Teams:
The Easement Action Teams are a project of the Bold Education Fund. The EATs work with local communities to provide immediate legal representation to landowners facing pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure. Our first priority is to protect landowners’ property rights and water. We believe landowners should have the ultimate right of what does and does not happen on their land. We stand against the use of eminent domain for private gain. (https://easementteams.org) The first landowners legal co-op formed was the Nebraska Easement Action Team, which successfully organized landowners to fight the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, and currently works with landowners fighting carbon pipelines in the state. (https://neeasement.org)
About Bold Pipeline Fighters Hub:
The Bold Pipeline Fighters Hub, a project of the Bold Education Fund, provides technical, legal, story telling and organizing assistance to any community fighting pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure, with the goal of protecting the land and water. (https://pipelinefighters.org)
About Bold:
The Bold Alliance and Bold Education Fund are coordinating state-based groups with our Pipeline Fighters Hub and landowner legal groups called the Easement Action Teams to stop pipelines from using eminent domain for private gain. (https://boldalliance.org)
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