The US Environmental Protection Agency is reviewing permit applications for 27 Class VI carbon injection wells in Illinois — out of 200 nationally — and nearly half of the national docket arrived in the past 12 months, according to the agency's project tracker. The review wave sets up a rapid expansion of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in a state whose geology, industry backers argue, is ideally suited to long-term CO2 sequestration.

The federal incentive math drives the rush. The Biden-era hike in the 45Q credit pays companies $85 for each metric ton of CO2 injected underground. Those credits totaled $3 billion in 2025 and could exceed $60 billion annually as the industry scales, according to an IEEFA analysis. Illinois offers a ready CO2 supply: more than a dozen ethanol plants whose fermentation byproduct can be compressed and pumped into the Mount Simon sandstone formation beneath the Eau Claire shale caprock.

Built capacity versus announced projects

The state's operating benchmark is Archer Daniels Midland's corn-processing plant in Decatur, site of the country's first permitted Class VI well. That facility leaked multiple times in 2024, in violations the EPA said breached the Safe Drinking Water Act. ADM failed to alert the public or state and local officials even as it petitioned Decatur for an expansion easement.

ADM now seeks additional wells to sequester up to 2 million metric tons of CO2 per year beneath Lake Decatur, supplied by a Broadwing Energy natural gas plant under a deal with Google to support the tech company's data centers. "We are confident in the safety, security, and effectiveness of carbon capture and storage… as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology," an ADM spokesman said, citing "inaccurate information circulating causing confusion and undue concern."

On April 10, the EPA issued a Class VI permit to Marquis Inc., which operates an ethanol plant in Hennepin, allowing injection of up to 9 million metric tons of CO2 over six years — the first Illinois permit since ADM's. Because the application was far along in the process, the permit was exempt from the state's 2024 Safe CCS Act requirements, said Pam Richart of the Eco-Justice Collaborative.

One Earth Energy, an ethanol manufacturer in McLean and Ford counties, has proposed a seven-mile pipeline and three wells storing up to 4.5 million metric tons of CO2 annually. The McLean County board denied its special-use permit in 2023, but the company plans a second application this year and is preparing for July 1, when the state's two-year moratorium on CO2 pipelines expires.

Health and safety record under scrutiny

Critics point to a thin operating record with notable failures. The country's first commercial sequestration site leaked within years of startup. A 2020 CO2 pipeline rupture in Satartia, Mississippi hospitalized at least 45 people and forced the evacuation of more than 200. At 4% atmospheric concentration, CO2 is immediately dangerous to life and health, according to NIOSH; the gas is colorless, odorless and heavier than oxygen, and it can prevent internal-combustion engines from starting — complicating evacuation and rescue.

"The carbon capture industry has existed as a pilot project for a long time, and those pilot projects showed us that this technology isn't scalable, doesn't actually work well for its stated goal of addressing the climate crisis, and has also exposed significant health and safety risks," said Jim Walsh, policy director at Food & Water Watch.

Ted Schettler, science director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, noted that saline water in the target formations forms carbonic acid on contact with CO2, which can leach heavy metals from the rock — a hazard if fractures connect storage zones to drinking-water aquifers.

The regulatory gap

No federal regulations currently apply specifically to CO2 pipelines, which operate under oil and gas standards. PHMSA proposed CO2-specific safety and reporting standards in January 2025, but the Trump administration withdrew the rulemaking in its first days.

Illinois has filled part of the gap itself. The Safe CCS Act, passed in 2024, requires pipeline developers to model impact zones and analyze leak response for first responders, with the Illinois Commerce Commission enforcing added safety standards. The state has banned sequestration near the Mahomet Aquifer, which supplies drinking water to more than 500,000 people. A Senate bill, SB 2842, would ban eminent domain for CO2 pipelines.

Navigator CO2's Heartland Greenway Vervain Project, among nine Illinois proposals still pending, was canceled by the company in 2023 over an "unpredictable" regulatory process, though EPA lists its permit as still under technical review.

The timeline that decides what happens next is short: the pipeline moratorium lapses July 1, the EPA's pending permit decisions could multiply Illinois wells within months, and the fate of SB 2842 in the state Senate will determine whether developers can still condemn land for pipeline rights-of-way.