Over 200 Hoosiers Turn Out to Hear Landowner Attorney Derrick Braaten Talk Property Rights and Carbon Capture & Storage Projects
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 20, 2026
Over 200 Hoosiers Turn Out to Hear Landowner Attorney Derrick Braaten Talk Property Rights and Carbon Capture & Storage Projects
Indianapolis – Over 200 Hoosiers and members of the Indiana Action Team, a landowner legal co-op opposed to risky “carbon capture & storage” (CCS) projects, met with prominent landowner attorney Derrick Braaten this week in Wabash and New Goshen to discuss their legal rights and the impacts of Indiana's pro-industry laws.
The meeting came on the heels of the Wabash County Commission being sued by ethanol giant and CCS proponent POET for attempting to enact safeguards for the community on toxic carbon injection.
Gov. Braun signed House Enrolled Act 1368 into law this month, which requires the state to apply to the EPA for “primacy” of oversight and permitting of carbon dioxide underground injection wells. The Indiana Action Team plans to oppose the state’s forthcoming “primacy” application before the U.S. EPA, which by statute will include a process with a public hearing and comment period.
"These meetings had a simple purpose — to hear from and help the landowners and rural communities who are most impacted but often the last to be consulted. These folks deserve a level playing field and to be treated with fairness and respect, something too many project developers seem to forget. I want to help these communities educate themselves on the laws so they are equipped to protect their personal and property rights,” said Derrick Braaten, attorney who has represented landowners in multiple states fighting carbon capture projects.
"From day one, many of us in the community felt like we weren't being treated right by Wabash Valley Resources. After hearing from an attorney who has taken on the carbon sequestration industry and won, I know I feel validated in my concerns,” said Janet Cianteo of Concerned Citizens Against Wabash Valley Resources.
“The carbon capture industry has been hoodwinking and taking advantage of communities across Indiana for too long. These meetings are laying the groundwork to ensure landowners know their rights to keep from being steamrolled by greedy corporations,” said Emma Schmit, Bold Alliance's Pipeline Fighters Director.
MEDIA: View photos available for download and publication with credit: Photo courtesy Bold Alliance
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 Indiana Action Team is a grassroots organization established for the benefit of landowners and community members affected by Wabash Valley Resources’ plan to create an underground toxic CO2 waste dump in Indiana. (https://indianaactionteam.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 carbon pipelines from using eminent domain for private gain. We believe that carbon capture and storage (CCS) is unproven and overly expensive and wastefully incentivized approach to climate change, and that the carbon pipelines needed for CCS are poorly planned, under-regulated, and risky infrastructure. These huge and complex projects should not move forward until counties, states and the federal government prove first that they are a better climate solution than renewable energy, and second that safety, planning, and routing standards are in place to avoid inefficient chaotic development driven by wasteful federal spending. (https://boldalliance.org)
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