PRESS RELEASE: Hoosiers Decry Trump Administration $1.5 Billion Loan for Carbon Capture Scam Project
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct. 29, 2025
Hoosiers Decry Trump Administration $1.5 Billion Loan for Carbon Capture Scam Project
Vigo County, IN — Landowners and concerned citizens in Indiana called out the Trump administration’s Oct. 29 announcement that the Dept. of Energy’s Loan Program Office will provide a $1.5 billion loan to Wabash Valley Resources for its proposal to turn a coal plant into a fertilizer plant with an attached “carbon capture & storage” (CCS) emissions system.
The loan, which was initiated by the Biden administration, was frozen at Trump’s behest until an announcement on Wednesday that said Trump officials “carefully evaluated under the new LPO guidance directed by Secretary Wright,” and reports indicating that they met with Wabash executives and “modified some of the terms.”
The project description provided by the Dept. of Energy no longer makes any mention of the carbon capture & storage elements of the project, which will generate millions of dollars in taxpayer credit giveaways to the company. However, Wabash Valley Resources recently completed an Environmental Assessment of the project for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and signed two local real estate mortgages for properties associated with potential CO2 injection well sites within Indiana.
“It is shameful that this Administration would hand out $1.5 billion to a privately owned, Korean backed corporation during a shutdown when everyday people can't receive basic government services and government employees go unpaid. That is not the American way. Vermillion and Vigo County communities, both directly targeted by the Wabash Valley Resources (WVR) Pilot Project, are standing united together against this unwanted, unnecessary project. Indiana law states WVR must have 60% voluntary pore space before eminent domain can be used to take our property against our will. This company and its foreign partners will be hard pressed to ever have majority support in our community. We are steadfast in our commitment to protecting Hoosier land and lives from this dangerous scheme,” said Janet Cianteo, targeted landowner and member of Concerned Citizens Against Wabash Valley Resources and Indiana Action Team.
“It is disgraceful that this project is being foisted on Hoosiers with the backing of our government and our public money. Enough is enough. We should not have to sacrifice our property rights or take on the risks of a proven-to-fail technology so Wabash Valley Resources’ investors can afford another private island,” said Emma Schmit, Bold Alliance's Pipeline Fighters Director.
About Bold’s Indiana Action Team:
The Indiana Action Team landowners’ legal co-op works to educate landowners and to support organizing those who are opposed to eminent domain for private gain, and works with attorneys to file landowner legal challenges to proposed CO2 waste dump and pipeline projects, and lawsuits and appeals including constitutional challenges and condemnation litigation. (https://indianaactionteam.org)
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://easementLLC.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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