To Peter Dreier, the renewed interest around Bob Dylan’s life, weeks ahead of the release of the Timothée Chalamet-led biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” on Christmas Day, is warranted.

“I guess I’ve written a lot about him,” said Dreier, a political science professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles who has penned numerous articles about Dylan’s cultural impact.

But while Dylan’s catalog led to his 1988 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, his activism in political causes, including the Civil Rights Movement, is inextricably linked to his legacy, too, Dreier said.

“Bob Dylan songs are not sing-along songs when he’s up on stage, even now,” Dreier said. “But particularly back then, before he went electric and [when] he was playing an acoustic guitar, and he was up on stage in the various coffee houses and folk clubs in Greenwich Village and then other places when he got more famous, he was a performer.

“He wanted you to listen to the words of a song. And he had this genius for finding things in the news and introducing the tragedies and the triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement into music that people could identify with as part of the struggle, because the Civil Rights Movement was a singing movement.”

In Milwaukee in the 1980s and 1990s, I’d heard Dylan’s name, but his style never appealed to a kid who cared a lot more about Public Enemy, LL Cool J, Tupac and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. But then, I saw a video in a class about the March on Washington in 1963 in Washington, D.C., where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech to a crowd of 250,000 that had gathered at the Lincoln Memorial.

Before King spoke, a series of speakers approached the dais. Then, Dylan was introduced.

And I had one thought: “Who is the white guy with the guitar?” Dylan clearly stood out. On that stage, in that setting, for that moment, I figured he had done something profound to earn the respect and admiration of some of the most influential Black people in this nation’s history.

Carbon capture projects such as Summit’s are eligible for lucrative federal tax credits intended to encourage cleaner-burning ethanol and potentially result in corn-based ethanol being refined into jet fuel.

Some opponents argue the amount of greenhouse gases sequestered through the process would make little difference and could lead farmers to grow more corn despite environmental concerns about the crop.

In Minnesota, utility regulators were expected to decide Thursday whether to grant a route permit for a small part of the overall project, a 28-mile (45-kilometer) segment that would connect an ethanol plant in Fergus Falls to Summit’s broader network.

An administrative law judge who conducted hearings recommended in November that the Public Utilities Commission grant the permit, saying the panel lacks the legal authority to reject it. The judge concluded that the environmental impacts from the Minnesota segment would be minimal, that the environmental review met the legal requirements, and noted that Summit has secured agreements from landowners along most of the recommended route. Commission staff, the state Department of Commerce and Summit largely concurred with those findings.

Environmental groups that oppose the project dispute the judge’s finding that the project would have a net benefit for the environment.

In addition to North Dakota, Summit has a permit from Iowa for its route, but regulators for that state required the company to obtain approvals for routes in the Dakotas and underground storage in North Dakota before it can begin construction. The Iowa Utilities Commission’s approval sparked lawsuits related to the project.

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