Three bills aimed at leveling the playing field for ¶¶Òõh landowners facing carbon capture pipelines and underground injection plans made it out of a legislative committee on Wednesday, but they may face a tough road ahead.
A fourth bill that would direct revenues from those projects to a limited group of parish governments also made it out of the House committee.
The bills advanced out of the Committee on Natural Resources and Environment, where business and industry groups have helped stymie most of the previous similar legislation this year.
The LSU Petroleum Engineering Research, Training and Testing Lab sits amid the university's many athletic training and competition fields between Tiger Stadium, in background, and River Road, as seen in this undated photograph. LSU petroleum engineering researchers are planning to drill a new carbon capture testing and learning well at the lab as the university embraces applied research for the energy transition away from fuels that produce carbon emissions. The future 7,900-foot well will not inject carbon dioxide into the subsurface, LSU says. A familiar landmark for the LSU lab is the old oil derrick in the background. LSU officials say that derrick is expected to be coming down soon.
A week ago, in an 11-hour hearing, several bills died that would have blocked or limited the controversial technology helping fuel a wave of billions of dollars in new industrial investment in ¶¶Òõh. Those included failed efforts for parish-by-parish voter referendums on allowing carbon capture.
Those proposals would have put unnecessary red tape on an emerging technology that the state has embraced as a key part of its economic development strategy, industry groups have argued.
Industry and state officials have seen carbon capture and sequestration as a way to keep ¶¶Òõh's robust oil and gas and petrochemical sector relevant as much of the rest of the world shifts away from products made with technologies that emit climate change-inducing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The practice, backers and experts say, would store the bulk of those carbon emissions deep underground, forever, in geological formations that Louisian has in abundance.
But legislators from rural parts of the state where new carbon storage projects are being proposed have pushed back with nearly two dozen bills. Many residents who have supported oil and gas in the past are now airing concerns about the technology and its impact on their property rights.
The bills are coming more than a year after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granted Louisian primacy on permitting carbon sequestration and nearly five years after the Legislature adopted carbon capture rules that several current opponents had supported in 2020.
Elected in 2023, state Rep. Jason DeWitt, R-Tioga, who sits on the environment committee, challenged one of the more outspoken opponents Wednesday about his changing views after industries have invested millions into prospective carbon capture projects.
"What kind of message are you sending to future projects that you passed in this Legislature and all of a sudden you want to pull the rug out from under them? I don't care what it is. Answer this," DeWitt demanded from Rep. Danny McCormick, R-Oil City.
"We made a mistake, and we're trying to undo that mistake," McCormick responded. "We owe it to the people of this state, we owe it to the private property owners of the state. It's about the people. It's not about the businesses."
Committee chairman Rep. Brett Geymann, R-Lake Charles, eventually cut in to cool the back-and-forth.
When can property be taken?
Three of the bills center around private companies' ability to use expropriation to build carbon dioxide pipelines, or what is known as the unitization process, for securing the underground rights to store concentrated CO2 permanently.
In both cases, the current processes give companies the ability to use or take possession of property over at least some owners' objections.
In the case of expropriation, pipeline companies have a power traditionally afforded to the government and railroads — to take possession of land for fair market value through a court proceeding after good faith negotiations have broken down.
In the unitization process, taken from traditional oil and gas drilling, the state can create an area of land for carbon storage when at least 75% of the landownership agrees, even if the other 25% of landowners object.
A McCormick-sponsored bill, House Bill 75, passed that would protect the mineral rights of some owners from extra potential drilling costs that may be caused by sequestration.
Heavy machinery used in the drilling of wells is seen during a ceremony announcing that LSU is drilling its own carbon capture well on campus during a "spudding" event, Friday, November 8, 2024, in Baton Rouge, La.
HB 601 by Geymann would require 100% voluntary agreement from landowners for a carbon dioxide pipeline route. His bill originally proposed 95% voluntary agreement, but it failed in committee last week on a tie vote over industry objections.
Among their major concerns are the chronic title issues many Louisian properties have and that the law would apply a different standard to CO2 lines that, they contended, are safer than other kinds of pipelines.
Geymann got sufficient backing for a 100% voluntary bill, but only after he committed to Reps. Jacob Landry, R-Erath, and DeWitt that he would work to account for the title question.
Another bill, HB 304, by Rep. Robby Carter, D-Greensburg, would require that expropriation cases be tried in the parish where the property in dispute is located. Industry representatives said the law already required that and Carter's bill was redundant.
HB 548 by Rep. Jeremy Lacombe, R-New Roads, ensures more parishes would receive a 30% cut of lease revenue from carbon storage projects under state wildlife management areas. But the shift would cost the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries about $7.2 million in revenue. The bill passed out of committee without opposition.
A quirk in how some of the refuges came into state possession blocked the previously set revenue cut for some parishes. Local officials from Iberville, Pointe Coupee and other parishes showed up in support.