In a campaign that has focused more on President Donald Trump than the issues, government regulation of carbon capture and sequestration has emerged as a key fault line in Saturday’s Senate primary.

State Treasurer John Fleming has made his forceful opposition to the new process a key driver of his campaign, saying it threatens to poison waterways and strip landowners of property rights.

That has made him the target of attack ads broadcast by two outside groups associated with Gov. Jeff Landry and financed at least in part by oil and gas companies that want to inject the carbon dioxide deep in underground wells.

Fleming has counterattacked by saying that U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, who has Landry’s support, actually supports the industry because her fiancée, Kevin Ainsworth, is a major lobbyist for carbon capture and sequestration companies in Baton Rouge. Letlow has called that accusation “a low blow.”

Letlow has said she favors letting local communities decide whether to allow the process.

“If a project is not safe, if it’s not transparent and if it does not have community buy-in, it should not move forward,” she said in a radio debate on May 5.

But in a separate interview, Letlow refused to be pinned down on how a community would decide to give a green light.

U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy on Tuesday said he agrees with Fleming that oil and gas companies should not be able to exercise eminent domain to build pipelines and storage facilities without landowners’ approval.

Cassidy also said he supports the moratorium that Landry has imposed on new carbon capture and sequestration projects. Letlow also backs that moratorium.

Cassidy said allowing parish governments to block carbon capture and sequestration projects “is an acceptable option.”

Where the race stands

Fleming and Letlow are trying to unseat Cassidy this year in the Republican election campaign. Saturday is the primary, where the top two Republican finishers, if no one wins above 50%, advance to a runoff on June 27.

All three candidates are predicting they will win one of the two spots in the June 27 runoff. Polls indicate that Letlow has the best chance.

But political analysts note that the new semi-closed primary election system and recent seismic events – including a U.S. Supreme Court decision that nullified Louisiana’s congressional map and Landry then canceling the House elections – make prognosticating Saturday’s results a challenge.

Three Democrats are vying in their own primary to face the Republican Senate nominee in November. They are Nick Albares, a policy analyst in New Orleans; Gary Crockett, a business owner in New Orleans; and Jamie Davis, a soybean, cotton and corn farmer in northeast Louisiana.

Albares said on Tuesday that he sides with Fleming and Cassidy in not allowing companies to use eminent domain to build carbon capture and sequestration projects on private land.

Davis called for “binding consent from the people who live there, not a public comment period that gets ignored” before any injection wells are permitted.

Crockett said, “I’m totally against it.”

Trump dominates election

Trump has been a dominant topic in the campaign because each of the three Republicans is claiming to be the candidate best aligned with the president. Letlow has his endorsement.

The three Democrats have been scathing in their criticism of Trump.

In a weekly call with reporters Tuesday, Cassidy announced $150 million in additional federal money to build a replacement bridge on Interstate 10 over the Calcasieu River in Lake Charles.

In making the announcement, Cassidy slipped in a story about how he was riding on the ancient bridge with Trump in the presidential limousine nicknamed “the Beast” to an event in Hackberry in Cameron Parish in 2019. As they reached the top, Cassidy said, Trump wondered aloud, “Is this bridge going to hold us”?

Cassidy said the new bridge would be able to hold the Beast and is an example of how he delivers for Louisiana. He said the money came from the Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act, a President Joe Biden-initiative that he supported, unlike the rest of Louisiana’s Republican delegation.

Fleming, meanwhile, speaking to a Republican luncheon Tuesday in Baton Rouge, highlighted a nine-page referral to the Department of Justice by a nonprofit group that accuses Letlow of filing false campaign finance reports to the Federal Elections Commission.

The Coolidge Reagan Foundation alleged that the Letlow Victory Fund raised money for two months without reporting it and then tried to conceal this later.

The foundation said it has filed previous complaints against Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.

“With the FEC, you have to be very careful with your paperwork,” Fleming told the crowd at the Ronald Reagan Newsmaker Luncheon.

Letlow’s campaign dismissed the allegation.

“Bill Cassidy voted to convict President Trump (on impeachment charges in 2021) and has spent over $10 million attacking Julia Letlow,” Letlow’s campaign said in a statement. “Now, in an attempt to distract from President Trump’s endorsement of Letlow, Cassidy’s allies are desperately trying to dress up routine FEC paperwork questions because they can’t defend Cassidy’s record. The Letlow campaign takes compliance seriously and has filed all required reports with the FEC.”

In recent days, Letlow has said that the defeat last week of five state senators opposed by Trump in Indiana bodes well for her campaign, since Trump wants to end Cassidy’s Senate career.

Outspent by Cassidy and Letlow, Fleming has said he is running a grassroots campaign. One example of that, he said in an interview, is that a majority of the members of the Republican State Central Committee have requested that the committee endorse him.

Derek Babcock, the party chair, didn’t respond to a text Tuesday asking how the party’s executive committee – which actually issues the endorsement – will respond.

Attack ads target Fleming

Landry has inserted himself into the campaign by raising money for two groups associated with him – the Accountability Project and MAGA Energy – to attack Fleming. Both groups are organized in a way that doesn’t require them to disclose their donors and are headed by two of his key campaign associates, Jay Connaughton and Jason Hebert.

Landry held an event at the Governor’s Mansion on April 20 with about 15 carbon capture and sequestration executives, said someone who attended the meeting but spoke on condition of anonymity. Landry warned the group that a Fleming victory would harm their industry. The executives then heard a pitch to raise $1.5 million to defeat Fleming, according to the source.

In a brief interview, Landry acknowledged holding the meeting but wouldn’t discuss it.

Fleming repeats his opposition to carbon capture and sequestration at every opportunity, telling the Reagan luncheon, “It’s just not good for Louisiana.”

In other appearances, Fleming has said the technology is unproven and dangerous, saying in a radio interview last month, “It’s stuffing toxic carbon dioxide in the ground and using your taxpayer money and stealing your land through private domain for profiteering.”

For a month, the Accountability Project and MAGA Energy have been attacking Fleming.

The Accountability Project has broadcast ads accusing Fleming of being a supporter of allowing illegal aliens across the Mexican border. Fleming called that a lie while speaking at the Reagan luncheon, saying he supports tough border restrictions.

MAGA Energy accuses Fleming of having voted for pro-carbon capture and sequestration bills while he served in the House. That, too, is a lie, Fleming told the Reagan crowd.

In a new line of attack, the Accountability Project is attempting to undermine a key part of Fleming’s pro-Trump biography by saying that Fleming never served as Trump’s deputy chief of staff during his final 10 months as president in first term.

In campaign appearances, Fleming has said his office was 10 steps from the Oval Office in the West Wing, and he told the Reagan luncheon that the accusation was “an absolute lie.”