A handful of Louisiana lawmakers brought bills this session to address public outcry over carbon capture projects, but their fellow legislators rejected most of their proposals.
Carbon capture and sequestration is a process where industrial facilities contain their carbon dioxide emissions to inject and store them below ground instead of releasing the gas into the atmosphere.
Gov. John Bel Edwards has embraced the technology in his plan to reach net-zero carbon emissions in Louisiana by 2050. Carbon capture projects were also incentivized with a boosted tax credit in the federal Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
So far, there are at least 20 capture storage sites planned for Louisiana, according to a recent Empower report commissioned by the nonprofit 2030 Fund. Ten have applied for a Class VI permit from the Environmental Protection Agency, which are used for carbon sequestration.
But neighbors of the proposed carbon capture facilities worry about safety risks and ecological damage, and some environmentalists say the technology enables continued polluting by companies instead of encouraging them to move away from fossil fuels.
Lake Maurepas project
Amid significant public backlash to a carbon capture project, Livingston Parish tried to put a yearlong moratorium on test wells from the company Air Products, which has plans to sequester CO2 in Lake Maurepas, but a federal judge ruled against the prohibition, according to the Associated Press.
Two Republican lawmakers with districts adjacent to Lake Maurepas, which is just west of Lake Pontchartrain, sponsored proposals to halt the Air Products project. Both died in the House
House Bill 267 by Rep. William “Bill” Wheat Jr. of Ponchatoula, would have placed a 10-year moratorium on carbon sequestration on or below Lake Maurepas and the Maurepas Swamp Wildlife Management Area. His bill aimed to protect the area from what it called “new and untested industries.”
The Wheat proposal noted the ecological importance of the area as recognized by the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, which has planned a $200 million river reintroduction project to revitalize the Maurepas Swamp.
House Bill 120, by Rep. Nicholas Muscarello Jr. of Hammond, would have prohibited the